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At first, Judy Melinek did not know how to respond when she was told about NRA tweet last week telling doctors who dared enter the gun to stay "in their own lane."
But two days later, when the forensic pathologist, was on 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 do I pull out of corpses weekly? This is not just my lane, "she tweeted on Friday. "It's my [expletive] highway. "
Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who suffers from a paralyzed vocal cord after taking a stray bullet in the neck almost 25 years ago, refused to stay silent the country's latest mass shot hit the news.
"I have two words for you Hell No! #Hell No for #ThousandOaks #Hell No for all black men that die & no one hears about it. #Hell No for all those we can be able to save, "Sakran wrote.
Melinek and Sakran are among countless medical professionals who have taken over the NRA – creating a viral response that has ricocheted around the Internet under the hashtags #thisisourlane and #thisismylane.
They have taken a debate on the subject of political journalism, and have published it in their journals and relaunched it in the unfiltered Twittersphere. And they have accompanied their indignant messages, and sometimes they are unseen and misshapen torsos heaped on gurneys.
They write of delivering a shattered baby that saved his mother's life by stopping a bullet, and of hiding blood and brain matter from parents. Oct. 27 carnage in a Pittsburgh synagogue and then the Nov. 7 thousand shooting in a Thousand Oaks country music bar failed to reflect the everyday routine of trying to resuscitate victims in Baltimore and beyond.
"Being silenced is not acceptable," Sakran said in an interview, describing how he still keeps the bullet fragment that nearly killed him on his trainer.
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.
Kathleen Bell, a physiatrist at the University of Texas who specializes in patient rehabilitation, said she was working on a patient's charts when she was told about the NRA tweet. She posted on behalf of the patients who, she explained, face ongoing indignities
"Let me mention lifetimes in wheelchairs with SCI [spinal cord injury], "Bell wrote," useless arms from brachial plexus destruction, colostomies from belly destruction and years of dependence with TBI [traumatic brain injury]. "
The NRA tweet was spurred by a position paper from the American College of Physicians Posted on Oct. 30 by the Annals of Internal Medicine and titled "Reducing Firearm Injuries and Deaths in the United States." The ACP recommended "a public health approach to firearms -related violence and the prevention of firearm injuries and deaths, "with the expression of responsibility for the prevention of other measures.
"The College acknowledges that any such regulations must be consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling that the individual is entitled to a constitutional right under the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights," the paper said.
The NRA lashed out, first with a Nov. 2 editorial, saying the ACP paper "Reflecting every anti-gunner's public policy wish list, save for the outsized role given to doctors" and accusing the group of being "only interested in pseudoscience" that supports their preferred anti-gun policies. "
Then on Nov. 7, just hours before 28-year-old form Marine Ian Long David launched his attack at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, the NRA put out its provocative tweet.
Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. 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. "
Not only did the individual doctors respond in a grievance, but the Annals told the NRA to stay "out of the room" and "invitees" to address the issue of a patient. "Evidence shows that your counsel could save a life," the publication tweeted.
The Centers for Disease Control has published a new edition of the report.
Still, many doctors are keen to point out that they are not anti-gun.
Gold even anti-NRA.
"Doctors are not at war with the NRA," said Heather Sher, who has worked in Level 1 trauma centers for almost 17 years, and cared for patients with gunshot wounds from two separate mass shoots. Sher prominence after the Parkland shootings when she published an article in the Atlantic about the damage caused by high-speed bullets from a semiautomatic rifle, which was unleashed.
"It's not an 'us versus them,' issue, 'Sher wrote in an email. "What we are really asking for is a coming together of both sides to a solution to this national health problem."
Still, some doctors who were familiar with the world of guns, could not say that their upset. Westley Ohman, a vascular surgeon in St. Louis, reset his password on Twitter after a nine-year hiatus.
"I fix blood vessels for a living," he tweeted. "When you work at a major trauma center, that means fixing blood vessels shredded by bullets. My lane is paved by the broken bones left behind by your products.
But Ohman, who grew up in Texas, said the response surprised him. It covered the whole spectrum, "said gun owners," he said, are tired of the carnage, too.
Richard Sidwell, Trauma Surgeon in Des Moines and Gun Owner, joined the NRA member and trauma surgeon "are NOT mutually exclusive."
Some disagreed vehemently.
In an interview, Sidwell said the divisiveness made it hard to find the common ground for improving gun safety.
"I am not anti-gun, I own firearms," Sidwell said. "I am anti-bullet hole."
Sher, who initially tweeted her sorrow about the NRA had published, gotten together with a core group of colleagues and was writing a letter urging further research and inviting the NRA to join forces.
In two days, she said, more than 23,000 doctors and other medical professionals have signed on.
"It is in the NRA's best interest to help us share the solution," Sher said.
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