I have spent my career as a trauma surgeon running toward gunshot wounds, not away from them.

I have also survived one myself.

Prevention is how we save the most lives, and it must always be our goal. But when prevention has failed, and a bullet has already torn through flesh, nothing matters more than immediate care. Seconds matter. Bleeding is relentless. Survival often hinges not on heroics, but on whether someone is allowed to do the most basic human act: Help.

That is why the recent shooting in Minneapolis is so deeply disturbing, not only because a woman was killed, but also because after she was shot, a physician on the scene was prevented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from rendering aid.

As a trauma surgeon, I find that fact chilling.

In medicine, we do not ask who someone is before we treat them. We do not ask........

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