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As a doctor, I’m going to keep asking about guns
KevinMD ^ | 8/9/12 | Suzanne Koven, MD

Posted on 08/13/2012 2:25:34 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows

Let’s set aside for the moment the question of whether it’s appropriate to talk about gun control in the wake of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado (though I can’t think of a more appropriate time to talk about it). And let’s not consider whether it makes sense that it’s legal to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition on-line in the U.S, without any background check (though could it, really?) And let’s not revisit that old argument about people, and not guns, killing people (though millions of “people,’ including evil and deranged people, do seem to live in countries with negligible amounts of gun violence).

What I’m thinking about today is the role doctors and other health professionals do and should play in preventing the 30,000 deaths and many more injuries in which firearms are involved every year in the U.S.

Behind the closed doors of my exam room, I ask patients many very personal questions: about their sexual behavior, alcohol and drug use, domestic violence, and other sensitive issues.

But there are no questions I ask–and I ask them routinely, especially of new patients–that meet with more surprise than these: “Do you own any firearms? Do you keep them locked and inaccessible to children?”

I believe the questions come as a surprise because people don’t usually think of gun ownership as something about which a doctor would or should be concerned.

But according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, homicide, suicide, and accidents are among the top three causes of death for Americans ages 0-54, and these deaths often involve firearms-over 30,000 per year. That’s seven times as many as die of cervical cancer, and nearly as many as die from pancreatic cancer annually.

It’s seems to me difficult to argue that health professionals shouldn’t be as interested in the prevention of gun violence as in the prevention of other causes of death.

Yet, doctors’ role in counseling patients about the potential danger of firearms is controversial, as expressed in this exchange. Some see such counseling as no different than speaking with patients about safe sex, smoking, and exercise. Some see it as an inappropriate intrusion of the doctor’s political views into the patient’s medical visit and an invasion of the patient’s privacy.

This latter view was in the news last fall when a Florida law, subsequently overturned by a federal judge, banned doctors from counseling patients about firearms, and would have imposed fines or even jail time on, for example, pediatricians who inquired about safe storage of guns in homes where children live.

In my own practice, most patients I ask about guns tell me that they don’t own any. This isn’t surprising because Massachusetts has one of the lowest gun ownership rates of any state in the U.S. (and, as it happens, the lowest rate of gun-related deaths).

And it’s possible that some patients don’t wish to discuss their gun ownership with me and choose not to answer my questions about it.

But occasionally I have a conversation such as I had not long ago with a man who lived alone and kept his loaded guns unlocked and accessible. Now and then his young nieces and nephews visited and it hadn’t occurred to him, until I asked, that his firearms might be a hazard to those children.

I’m going to keep asking about firearms, especially in regard to those at highest risk of harm from them: children, patients struggling with depression, patients with difficult family relationships.

As a doctor, why wouldn’t I?

Suzanne Koven is an internal medicine physician who blogs at In Practice at Boston.com, where this article originally appeared.  She is the author of Say Hello To A Better Body: Weight Loss and Fitness For Women Over 50


TOPICS: Government; Health/Medicine; Society
KEYWORDS: 2012; 2ndamendment; banglist; democrats; fascistphysicians; guncontrol; liberalfascism; obamacare; secondamendment
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To: TADSLOS

Excellent.


101 posted on 08/13/2012 6:02:21 AM PDT by Auntie Mame (Fear not tomorrow. God is already there.)
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To: Slings and Arrows

102 posted on 08/13/2012 6:05:32 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Slings and Arrows
Let’s set aside for the moment the question of whether it’s appropriate to talk about gun control in the wake of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado (though I can’t think of a more appropriate time to talk about it).

So you're not going to set it aside. You should worry about the comming liberal catastrophe that is obamacare and let people who own guns worry about their guns. Do you ask them if they own a car and if the tires are bald???

103 posted on 08/13/2012 6:07:22 AM PDT by ontap
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To: Slings and Arrows

If she’s asking about risky behavior, I hope that she’s consistent and asks her patients if they engage in homosexual activity.

Male homosexuals have lifespans that are shorter than heavy smokers. Not sure about females.


104 posted on 08/13/2012 6:08:28 AM PDT by kidd
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To: Slings and Arrows

I could tell you, Doc, but then I’d have to kill you!


105 posted on 08/13/2012 6:13:16 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed &water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: Slings and Arrows
whats been missed entirely is the question we should be asking in response.

Please have your malpractice insurance company provide me with the documentation that you are a legally trained expert in firearms safety and have the ability to dispense firearms safety instructions as a part of your medical practice.

Failing that - they are open to a lawsuit

106 posted on 08/13/2012 6:14:41 AM PDT by Revelation 911 (How many 100's of 1000's of our servicemen died so we would never bow to a king?" -freeper pnh102)
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To: maxwellsmart_agent

Discussions about guns have no place in a doctor’s office (unless you’re getting treated for a gunshot wound).


107 posted on 08/13/2012 6:15:48 AM PDT by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed &water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: who knows what evil?

Not all of New England is arrogant.

I’ve lived in Maine for twenty years and I rarely experience arrogant people here. Incompetent people from time to time.....yes. Arrogant....no.

Massachusetts is a different story.

I’ve seen plenty of doctors and other medical personnel here in Maine and not once has anyone asked me about firearms. People in Maine have boatloads of firearms of every description, and the crime rate here is very low. This is a pro-second amendment state.

This Suzanne Koven broad sounds like a left-wing quack with an agenda. I hope someone reminds this loon that mistakes by doctors kill at least 100,000 Americans every year and injures or maimes hundreds of thousands of others.


108 posted on 08/13/2012 6:16:55 AM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (The Second Amendment makes all the other amendments possible.)
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To: Slings and Arrows
Behind the closed doors of my exam room, I ask patients many very personal questions: about their sexual behavior, alcohol and drug use, domestic violence, and other sensitive issues.

And if I were your patient, I'd tell you to FO about those too, at least any of them that didn't have health implications. I came there because I need an expert in physiology (think plumber for the body), not because I'm too stupid to live my life nor because I have some burning desire to contribute to your inappropriate database.

109 posted on 08/13/2012 6:17:46 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Slings and Arrows
I don't have insurance, so I pay all the medical bills.

This incompetent little social engineer is going to waste my time and money asking me questions that have nothing to do with why I am seeing her?

She damn well better have malpractice insurance b/c after that sort of bedside manner I'm now a very hostile patient and I'm litigiously "gunning" for her.

110 posted on 08/13/2012 6:17:52 AM PDT by GBA
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To: Revelation 911
Please have your malpractice insurance company provide me with the documentation that you are a legally trained expert in firearms safety and have the ability to dispense firearms safety instructions as a part of your medical practice.

I can't believe it took this long for this response. I was going to post it but you did for me.

111 posted on 08/13/2012 6:19:16 AM PDT by Eaker (When somebody hands you your arse, don't give it back saying "This needs a little more tenderizing.")
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To: who knows what evil?

Wow, it only we cold become, even one of us, could become a Conservative state, I might trust your reply more!!!!


112 posted on 08/13/2012 6:20:24 AM PDT by GizzyGirl
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To: Slings and Arrows

It’s real simple, Doc. If you don’t see any bullet holes, firearms are likely irrelevant to my visit. I’m paying for your time, by the second, and if you are going to waste my time with things irrelevant to my care, then I’m NOT getting what I came to get.


113 posted on 08/13/2012 6:23:05 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: UncleHambone
There are also about 30,000 deaths per year from auto accidents. Does she ask her patients if they have a car? And do they keep their keys in a locked cabinet?

Yeah!....oh, wait....

114 posted on 08/13/2012 6:24:31 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Slings and Arrows
It’s seems to me difficult to argue that health professionals shouldn’t be as interested in the prevention of gun violence as in the prevention of other causes of death.

Because you're a DOCTOR! Dock....tor..... You are a plumber or electrician for the human body, not a Preventer Of Death. How much of your time do you expend opposing oppressive collectivist regimes (like the one that will occur if you get rid of guns)? They line people up at trenches and kill them in masses -- I thought all causes of death were the same to you? No? Then shut the hell up with your paternalistic attitude and do your job while you still have one.

115 posted on 08/13/2012 6:29:18 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: MachIV; Durus

What Durus said in post 78. To be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves requires wisdom and discernment, not a default clinging to simplified rules of the kind that are presented to five-year-olds.

The Egyptian midwives got that when they told pharaoh that those Hebrew women, well they gave birth faster than Egyptians... gee we just couldn’t get there in time [to murder the baby boys].

As was mentioned up thread... a non-intrusive approach is simply to state that “if” you own firearms, then [insert whatever safety tip of the day]. Then the purpose could be taken at face value - that it really is merely to impart safety advice (even if worthless), not a tactic for identifying/cornering/shaming/lecturing gun owners.

This doctor’s approach is intimidating and politically charged and therefore not to be trusted, so those Christians should know to be alert to such stealth and respond with diligence, not hand over personal information upon demand as would be expected from foolish simpletons. That’s not righteousness, that’s turning a blind eye. I sure wouldn’t want those folks as neighbors, wrestling with their under-developed conscience over what is okay to tell the JBTs about the “militant” guy next door.

It’s way beyond time that certain much-too-curious folks in our society learn the meaning of “No”.


116 posted on 08/13/2012 6:32:26 AM PDT by Ezekiel (The Obama-nation began with the Inauguration of Desolation.)
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To: Slings and Arrows
This isn’t surprising because Massachusetts has one of the lowest gun ownership rates of any state in the U.S. (and, as it happens, the lowest rate of gun-related deaths).

Just this very weekend:

10 shot, 3 killed in separate Boston shootings.

117 posted on 08/13/2012 6:32:26 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Still Thinking

“You are a plumber or electrician for the human body...”

Interesting point. One could make a very strong case that plumbers have done more to improve the human condition than doctors could ever dream of (due to sewage disposal, alone). So why don’t plumbers ask the same, probing, questions?


118 posted on 08/13/2012 6:36:02 AM PDT by BobL (Cruz'd to Victory - July 31, 2012)
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To: from occupied ga

This problem is happening all over the country. Liberals spread exactly like cancer. Taking over good states and destroying them and then moving on to the next.

They leave the very mess they created. As soon as they have moved to a new state they start demanding the same things that destroyed the state they left.


119 posted on 08/13/2012 6:40:43 AM PDT by cableguymn (For the first time in my life. I fear my country's government.)
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To: Straight Vermonter
The chart at the link Latest from the CDC is supposed to show unintentional deaths.

Unfortunately, on their chart somehow suicide and homicide are considered 'unintentional'. I'd wager that someone intended to die or for someone else to die in either instance, which, by definition, is NOT UNintentional.

Motor vehicle accidents still lead the way, followed by unintentional poisonings and then falls.

120 posted on 08/13/2012 6:42:53 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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