Educating medical students on injury prevention: sense and sensibility

Writing a regional report for injury prevention activities in Europe is not an easy task. One should first search through informal channels for noticeable, on-going research and action oriented activities as well as for the development of new strategies or regulations in the injury prevention and control field. Within a continent with diverse cultures and too many official languages, and which has recently undergone major political changes, this may be the first obstacle for a written scientific communication that aims to be based on collective experience. Secondly, one should attempt to foresee the utility of the reported information and question its value for the international readership of the journal. Given the limited time a reader can spend scanning through diverse sources and the continuous “showering” with information of questionable validity, I would rather save space in a high quality scientific journal for peer reviewed research publications. It would be useful to list regularly updated internet sites of interest and reports on the diverse aspects of injury control and prevention; this could be either published in the journal or uploaded to the ISCAIP site. Developing an informal network of national correspondents to make us aware of any developments in the field, alert colleagues to newly identified safety hazards, and screen for the accuracy of such information would be another option. However, the regional correspondent would have no other …