By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Dr. Amy Goldberg, Temple Hospital’s chief of trauma and surgical critical care, stood in the hospital’s emergency room and held up a blunt-looking metal tool so 20 boys, 8th graders from Finletter, could see it.

“We take an instrument like this, lift up on the breast bone and actually cut straight across it,” she explained.

Goldberg’s description of the extraordinary and somewhat gruesome steps she takes to save gunshot victims are part of “Cradle to Grave,” a program she created in 2006, after a spike in teen gun deaths, to show middle school students the true consequences of gun violence.

“They have no idea what gunshot wounds and gunshot violence is really about. None,” she says.

Goldberg believes music, movies and video games have given teenagers an unrealistic view of guns and even the rituals that have developed around the mourning of homicide victims reinforce a romantic image of violence.

“Cradle to Grave” seeks to dash that by taking teens through the process a shooting victim goes through, using a case study from Temple’s own records, that of 16-year-old Lamont Adams.

Listen to entire interview:

