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.
(1) I’d like to introduce this arrogant snob to economics. Whether I own weapons and how they are stored are none of her business. She works for her patients, and I will not hire a physician who is more interested in politics than in my children’s health. She’s fired (just like the last effete doctor who actually asked my kids about firearms in any context other than hunting season).
(2) I’d also like to introduce this intellectual midget to the scientific method and data analysis. Massachusetts, with its unconstitutional gun laws that make her so proud of her elitism, has an annual murder rate of 3.2 per 100,000 people. Gun-loving Western states, such as Idaho (1.3 per 100,000), Wyoming (1.4), North Dakota (1.5), Utah (1.9), and many others have far lower murder rates.
Note: Massachusetts does have a low rate of gun suicides, but they are 13th from the top in total violent crime (behind DC, MD, the border states, Nevada, and Alaska). The criminals know their victims are unarmed, so the flood of rapes, assaults, and armed robberies rarely leads to murder. How many decent people want to live in a state where they are nearly ten times as likely to be raped as in the Western states I mentioned, in return for the state preventing them from having the means to kill themselves - but also to defend themselves?
More people are killed by doctors than with firearms. We need doctor control, as as an attorney, I know everything, so I'll be the expert.
actually.. I can see more of a reason for a plumber, electrician or carpenter to be asking you about a gun in the home.
Since they will actually be working in that home and likely don’t want to be surprised by the firearm when they find it.
Since I work as an electrician I simply tell the homeowner the areas of the home I am going to be working in and ask them to think about that area and remove anything they might not want me to find.
That way I don’t find “other” things. The gun would not bug me.
Which are intentional deaths. (Someone intended for someone to die.)
That isn't accidental death.
Maybe the doctor should throw in casualties of war (combatant) as well for an even more impressive bogus statistic.
“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?”
And I would tell you its none of your damn business Doctor Kevin, walk out, not pay the bill, and find another doctor.
I bet Doctor Kevin swishes when he walks.
Ask the Doctor exactly what “expert”training in firearms safety she has had & when you find out it is zip ask her for the name of her malpractice insurance carrier . She is practicing beyond her scope of practice & her carrier will drop like she is radioactive when they find out.
That is the reply we told our children to give to anyone who asked them. “You will have to talk to my parents.”
I’m correcting my own post....nearly 200,000 patients a year die from medical mistakes. And these leftist loons have the nerve to lecture gun owners? Sheesh!
“actually.. I can see more of a reason for a plumber, electrician or carpenter to be asking you about a gun in the home.”
I was thinking that way, but decided not to go that far...but you are qualified to do so.
Am I from MA? If you saw the word 'sport'; you must have seen the phrase "so do I" in response to you when you said "I live here". You live in NH...'so do I'. Not for much longer, fortunately...like many others; we can't stand it anymore. By the way, crime here is MUCH WORSE than it was twenty years ago. You're not cribbing from that 'Free State' nonsense, I hope. In any event, we disagree. Enjoy your stay.
Oops...three killed, ten shot in 'Bloody Sunday' incident in Boston area yesterday. Don't tell this elitist doctor...
Quite right. It'd be like if you took your car to the mechanic because the starter is making this clunketa-clunketa noise, and he wants to ask if you've checked your AC freon because, after all, why should one mechanical cause for grief in your life be more important to him than any other? (A: Because it's the one YOU decided to delegate to him to worry about. Nothing was said about a "whole-life" checkup.)
>>I’m going to flat out lie about it every time and worry about the moral implications later. <<
Isn’t the sin “Bearing False witness against your neighbor”?
I’m not sure that a “lie” is wrong if morally one is protecting one’s family.
It isn’t anyone’s business except MINE if I have a BB gun or a ZPU-4 in my house
Amen!
Hell’o that little ZPU used to try to shoot me down. That should guarantee I have one on general principles.
Yeah, my understanding is that a “lie” isn’t defined solely by falsehood, per se, but the withholding of information from someone with a RIGHT TO KNOW. If a bum walks up to you on the street and demands to know how much is in your wallet (or bank account) it’s not lying to pull some false number out of your butt and tell him. OTOH, when someone has a right to know, even withholding the information with misleading but technically accurate words is morally equivalent to lying. If someone is after information they have no right to, you have no moral obligation to be forthright with the information, nor even about the fact that you’re not giving them the information.
would an insurance company respond to demands to dump her off any approved list?
I'd go with a wide eyed, "Guns are dangerous, Doctor!"
And it's not even a lie... Depending...
Exactly!
If approached from an honest perspective of a doctor interested in a patient’s health and in line with sensible concerns, fine. If your patient is James Holmes and he’s starting to exhibit signs of a mental break with an unhealthy fixation on mass murder, yes you might want to not ignore the subject. If, however, your patient is a normal family with young kids, suggesting a fast-open safe and Eddie Eagle training would likewise be prudent ... and, if no arms are owned, perhaps a suggestion of getting some may be in order (fact: majority of children abducted by strangers are dead within 4 hours, and near all by 24 ... perhaps the parent should be prepared to take action immediately).
The problem at the core is distrust: the doctor doesn’t trust patients with ‘em, and patients don’t trust the doctors with the information.
One doctor I had would make disapproving noises about my hobby.
Until a major natural disaster involving lots of looting made the news. Then he asked me what to get.
Is there some evidence that he didn't? (Actually I think it's a she)
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