Posted on 02/08/2015 7:44:09 AM PST by rktman
I ran across this article last month and thought about commenting on it, but never got around to it. It starts out with a 61-year-old going to the doctor and being surprised by a question about guns.
Hands of medical doctor with a stethoscope. Isolated on white.The article quotes Dr. David Nash, dean of Thomas Jefferson University’s School of Population Health in Philadelphia, as a proponent of the idea that “80 percent of a population’s well-being is determined by social factors such as where they live, who their family is, their socioeconomic status and the quality of their relationships.”
“We’re beginning to recognize that your ecosystem, if you will, is predictive of your medical health,” Nash said. “If you have a gun at home, you’re more at risk of gun-related violence.”
The article goes on to try to make the case for the gun questions by suggesting they are just one of many kinds of questions that doctors “frequently” ask to get a better idea of a patient’s whole health picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at armedlutheran.us ...
Yes Doc, I have one with me. Would you like to sede it?
Yep. The good doctor got the memo. Be sure to enter that information in the electronic medical record and the government will do the rest.
I’ve been asked that question. My answer was “none of your business.” I got no argument. The question was from the nurse. I told my doc I didn’t like it. He said he understood. He didn’t like it either. Implication was that he had to ask it. I’ve also been asked whether there was violence in the home, i.e., was I being abused. I told the nurse that I had been a trial lawyer for over 35 years and what did she think. I also asked whether they asked men that question. She changed the subject.
Small town docs are frequently pro-gun whereas big city docs aren't.
One night I was at a neighbor’s house, he was talking about guns. The neighbor owes guns, his sons hunt. He also is a doctor. He ask me if I had a gun. I replied now that the government has tasked doctors with asking such questions, I don’t feel comfortable answering the question to an agent of the government and plead the 5th. The look on his face was priceless.
Never been asked but my response would be none-ya, that`s short for none ya business!
As an ER doctor THAT is a funny answer.
We get mandated to have all kinds of bullsh#t on the electronic medical record. The doctors that like this type of political contamination of medicine are the ones that want to work 20 hours a week and get paid $500,000.00/year. I have known physicians that wanted a "union" and some that thought Obamacare is and was a great idea.
Don't believe that the AMA or any organization speaks for the front line doctors. In my group of 32 physicians I can pretty much say upon direct visualization that 30 of them have weapons and the other two just might be sneaky. As far as carrying....well 100% of them are sneaky.
Question back to the doctor/nurse- Do you carry and administer life threatening immunizations?
My former internist asked me whether there is a firearm in my home. I responded “none of your business, but do you know that asccording to the CDC and the NIH, medical malpractice kills over 100,000 people a year in the United States?” I could see the steam building in his face, but before he could respond, I added that “from a purely statisical viewpoint, seems to me that I am at least ten times safer at home with a gun, than I am at a doctor’s office or a hospital.”
The only question this doc will ever ask about guns is advice for which I should acquire next. Or perhaps good places to go shooting. Feel free to answer, I wont write it down or share.
There is only one ethical reason to ask that question, and that is if the patient expresses a desire to kill himself and others.
Hey, I’d like to join your group. Except I’m a hospitalist. Oh well....
Great response!
And JUST REMEMBER - they are likely entering your response into a database, and there will be one of 3 choices:
1) Does not owns guns
2) Owns guns, but appears responsible
3) Likely owns guns, and may be dangerous
The CORRECT ANSWER is #1. Calmly say you do not own a gun. For all of you people that plan to tell the doctor: NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS (or anything like that), you will be entered as #3, and the police will know that every time they have contact with you.
I’ve seen many doctors this week unfortunately and not a damn one asked me about guns.
If they did I would of course take them through a thirty minute trilogy about bird hunting with my BB gun in 1973.
It ends up going through the ice but saving the gun. Quite an exhilarating tale.
:^)
Any long term effects from the ice incident? Other than you lost your BB gun, much as a lot of folks have had canoe “incidents”. :>}
I'd dispute his underlying assumption. The safest states for violent crime have the largest number of firearms per household. The unsafest states (and the District of Columbia) have the fewest firearms per household. The typical response, of course, is to conflate homicides with suicides. The problem with doing that is individuals who choose to suicide would naturally use an easily available method.
In Western states that would be a firearm. In New York City that would include jumping from high places, jumping in front of a subway train and drug overdoses. And the problem with that is that absent a suicide note, a medical examiner has no possible way to know if a fatal fall or a subway death or a drug overdose was a suicide or an accident. Absent information to the contrary, it will be assumed to be an accident.
One effect has remained. Stay off the Ice if your below the Mason-Dixon!
Guns? Guns?
That is scary talk Doc. I don’t like them, and I am afraid of them.
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