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| Image Source: Common Sense |
Sparrow/Michigan State University
Chair, RSA Social Media Committee
Originally Published: Common Sense July/August 2017
We in the world of emergency medicine like to think of ourselves as ready for anything. I have often heard the mantra that we are ready for anything that “walks, rolls, or crawls through the door.” Our world is one of relatively controlled chaos. That is to say, when we receive the chaos, it has started somewhere else, far off and distant and we receive a microcosm of it in the form of a patient. That patient is delivered (for the most part) calmly to our home base. However, what happens when the chaos starts at our home base?
Code Silver. It’s something no health care provider ever wants or expects to hear in his or her hospital. But it was something that became a reality for the patients and staff of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital at 2:50 PM on June 30th, 2017.[1] A disgruntled employee, a former physician at the hospital no-less, entered his former place of employ, traveled calmly to the 16th and 17th floors with an AR-15 neatly hidden under his coat. He was wearing a white coat, the symbol physicians traditionally wear to signify healing, and opened fire on his former colleagues. His brutal attack left one dead and six wounded requiring various levels of inpatient hospital care.
