March 26, 2018

What doctors think of Rick Santorum's remedy for gun violence

USA Today - Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum's suggestion that student survivors of last month's deadly shooting rampage at a Florida high school should forget about supporting "phony gun laws" and learn CPR has drawn the ire of some physicians on social media.

"As a surgeon, I’ve operated on gunshot victims who’ve had bullets tear through their intestines, cut through their spinal cord, and pulverize their kidneys and liver," tweeted surgeon and health care columnist Eugene Gu. "Rick Santorum telling kids to shut up and take CPR classes is simply unconscionable."

Rebecca Bell, a pediatric critical care physician in Vermont, tweeted that survival rates of trauma victims who require CPR at the scene of a shooting are "very, very low."

"Survival rate of people who don't get shot in the first place: much, much better, " Bell tweeted.

Trauma surgeon Joseph Sakran tweeted that he felt compelled to correct a "false perception" Santorum may have conveyed.

"Victims that go into cardiac arrest after #GunViolence are Bleeding to Death. CPR is NOT effective in this situation," Sakran tweeted.

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