The Philadelphia Inquirer Delves into LKSOM Study Examining Firearm-Injured Patient Clusters at Philadelphia-Area Hospitals

Jessica H. Beard, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), led a research team that set out to calculate the number and analyze trends in the rates of firearm-injured patients taken at clustered time intervals to Philadelphia-area hospitals over 11 years. The results, which found that those hospitals responded to the equivalent of 54 mass shooting-type events during that period, were published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Other LKSOM researchers involved in the study included Drs. Amy J. Goldberg, Lars O. Sjoholm and Zoe Maher. The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Dr. Beard not only about the findings, but also about the human side of gun violence and the root causes any solutions would need to address.