Dr. Sakran is a trailblazer and nationally respected voice in the firearm injury prevention movement. He is currently the Executive Vice Chair of Surgery, Director of Clinical Operations, Director of Emergency General Surgery, and Associate Professor of Surgery and Nursing at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. As a survivor of firearm-related violence, he was motivated to become a surgeon, researcher, and advocate in firearm injury prevention. At every turn of his career, he has used his personal experience and substantial skills to push a new frontier primarily in service of marginalized communities in the United States. The Academy Health recognized his research on firearm-related injury with the Outstanding Article of the Year Award. Dr. Sakran served as a National Academy of Medicine Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the U.S. Senate during the COVID-19 pandemic guiding historic legislation. As a Senior Fellow at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Dr. Sakran was instrumental in creation of the Health Equity Tracker. In 2019, Dr. Sakran was named a Presidential Leadership Scholar in which he furthered his research on safe gun storage. He was also a 2020 recipient of Johns Hopkins' Catalyst Award for his pioneering research on physicians' role in educating patients on safe gun storage. He was instrumental in helping shepherd the legislation that led to the passage of the first federal firearm injury prevention legislation in nearly 30 years, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Dr. Sakran was instrumental in laying the foundation for the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention that was launched by President Biden in September of 2023. He has demonstrated & trained healthcare professionals on how to effectively communicate the data & science to drive social change. He has testified before U.S. Congress, and other Federal and State agencies on Firearm injury prevention. Most recently, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his innovative work and exceptional leadership in firearm injury prevention, which has been most instrumental in establishing the urgency and intellectual foundation to drive research and evidence-based policy change at the local, state, and federal level.
Selected publications from PubMed
Triggering Change: Evaluating the Impact of ATF Actions on Firearm Assault Rates in a Large US City.
Byskosh A, Buck A, Smith S, Galea S, Torres C, Dechert T, Saillant N, Sakran J, Seamon M, Scantling D
Inj Prev. 2026 Jul 20;32(4):678-681 doi: 10.1136/ip-2025-045896.
A Pilot Machine Learning Study Using Trauma Admission Data to Identify Risk for High Length of Stay.
Stonko DP, Weller JH, Gonzalez Salazar AJ, Abdou H, Edwards J, Hinson J, Levin S, Byrne JP, Sakran JV, Hicks CW, Haut ER, Morrison JJ, Kent AJ
Surg Innov. 2023 Jun;30(3):356-365 doi: 10.1177/15533506221139965.
Opioids After Surgery in the United States Versus the Rest of the World: The International Patterns of Opioid Prescribing (iPOP) Multicenter Study.
Kaafarani HMA, Han K, El Moheb M, Kongkaewpaisan N, Jia Z, El Hechi MW, van Wijck S, Breen K, Eid A, Rodriguez G, Kongwibulwut M, Nordestgaard AT, Sakran JV, Ezzeddine H, Joseph B, Hamidi M, Ortega C, Flores SL, Gutierrez-Sougarret BJ, Qin H, Yang J, Gao R, Wang Z, Gao Z, Prichayudh S, Durmaz S, van der Wilden G, Santin S, Ribeiro MAF Jr, Noppakunsomboom N, Alami R, El-Jamal L, Naamani D, Velmahos G, Lillemoe KD
Ann Surg. 2020 Dec;272(6):879-886 doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004225.
Firearm injury research and epidemiology: A review of the data, their limitations, and how trauma centers can improve firearm injury research.
Hink AB, Bonne S, Levy M, Kuhls DA, Allee L, Burke PA, Sakran JV, Bulger EM, Stewart RM
J Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2019 Sep;87(3):678-689 doi: 10.1097/TA.0000000000002330.
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