Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'This Isn’t Just My Lane. It's My Highway': Doctors Outraged Over NRA's Suggestion That They Stay Out Of Gun Debate
NPR: After NRA Mocks Doctors, Physicians Reply: 'This Is Our Lane'
A mocking tweet from the National Rifle Association has stirred many physicians to post on social media about their tragically frequent experiences treating patients in the aftermath of gun violence. "Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted on Thursday. "Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves." (Wamsley, 11/11)
The Washington Post: ‘Being Silenced Is Not Acceptable’: Doctors Express Outrage After NRA Tells Them ‘To Stay In Their Lane’
At first, Judy Melinek didn’t know how to respond when she learned about a National Rifle Association tweet last week telling doctors who dared enter the gun debate “to stay in their lane.” But two days later, when the West Coast forensic pathologist was on her way to the morgue to examine the body of one of the country’s many forgotten gunshot victims, the words came to her. “Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn’t just my lane,” she tweeted Friday. “It’s my [expletive] highway.” (Sellers, 11/11)
NPR: Psychological Effects Of Mass Shootings Are Widespread
Roger Chui first learned about the mass shooting that killed 12 people in a packed bar Wednesday night in Thousand Oaks, Calif., when he woke up the morning after and turned on his phone. "And I was like 'Oh, that seems really soon after Pittsburgh and Louisville,' " says the software developer in Lexington, Ky. "I thought we'd get more of a break." Chui feels like these kinds of shootings happen in the U.S. so often now that when he hears about them all he can think about is, "Oh well, it happened again I guess." (Chatterjee and Westerman, 11/9)
Los Angeles Times: The Role Of PTSD In Mass Shootings: Let’s Separate Myth From Reality
Just hours after former Marine Ian David Long killed himself and 12 other people at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday night, observers speculated that post-traumatic stress disorder played a role in the tragedy. The Ventura County sheriff alluded to it. One of Long’s former roommates in Reseda mentioned it. Even the president of the United States said it. But psychology experts say it is premature to suggest that Long suffered from PTSD — or that it could have prompted him to open fire in a bar packed with young adults. (Netburn, 11/10)
The Washington Post: Ventura Shooting: They Survived The Las Vegas Massacre. In A California Country Bar, It Happened Again.
The first frantic message buzzed Brendan Hoolihan’s phone at about midnight Wednesday, and for hours the messages continued to flood his Snapchat group text. His friends had created the chain after the Las Vegas shooting massacre a year earlier, just in case something unimaginable like that ever happened again. It had. (Mettler, 11/11)
