As the ancient Chinese proverb says, from crisis comes opportunity. That is certainly true for Garen Wintemute, a leading gun-violence researcher and emergency room doctor who finds “teaching moments” in the grief-filled days and weeks following mass shootings in America.
He is currently seizing a window of opportunity recently opened by the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Wintemute, once named a “hero of medicine” by Time magazine, has led the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis Medical Center for 25 years. Twenty years ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly stopped funding Wintemute’s program. He has since put up $1.3 million of his own money to keep it running.
HENRY KOTULA 