Posted on 07/13/2011 9:35:44 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
MIAMI (AP) — Doctors in Florida are fighting a first-of-its-kind law requiring them to have a legitimate safety concern before they start asking a patient about guns.
The physicians contend the new law is too broad and they should be free to ask patients and parents about firearms in the house to make sure people know how to keep them safely locked away. Doctors routinely offer similar advice about other household risks, from the dangers of tobacco use to swimming pools.
Gun rights supporters who pushed for the new law believe questions about gun ownership are an invasion of privacy, and say some people have been dropped by doctors simply because they refused to talk about firearms.
The law, signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, took effect June 2. It forbids doctors from inquiring about guns unless the information is "relevant to a patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others."
Doctors' groups representing about 11,000 physicians in Florida immediately sued, calling on a federal judge to block the law. They say the law is already having a chilling effect on meaningful conversations about firearms with patients, which professional medical organizations have for years advocated as good practice. Many patient questionnaires ask about gun ownership.
"Making sure patients understand the risks around them is a critical part of a doctor's mission," Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, an attorney for the physicians' said Wednesday during a court hearing on the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke didn't issue a ruling but asked skeptical questions of the doctors.
"What's relevant about asking about my gun when I came in with a cold?" said Cooke, a 2004 appointee of President George W. Bush. "Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe the questionnaire is overbroad and not the statute."
(Excerpt) Read more at centurylink.net ...
Well, this is worth a barforama
This all started in FL when docs started dropping patients who didn't answer their gun questions. To do something about it became more urgent when it was realized that with Obamacare looming down the road any answer to the GUN QUESTION would immediately end-up in a government owned and operated database (recall that one of the stated aims of BammyCare was to put all medical records online).
Many would argue that in a free society docs should be able to ask what they want and to be free to drop any patients they wish. I would only ask those that hold this opinion to realize that Democrat Socialism has got us by the boot on the neck and is distorting the market. It will become harder and harder to find a personal physician especially after you are dropped by one that has you tagged in the medical database as a "right-wing gun nut".
So the options are to either lie or pass a law outlawing the question.
This is not a doctor's job. Damn nanny staters.
I’ve seen a statistic (I don’t know what it is based on) that says guns in America save a life every seconds. I wonder if the doctor would get jealous if I told him that?
“Making sure patients understand the risks around them is a critical part of a doctor’s mission,” Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, an attorney for the physicians’ said Wednesday during a court hearing on the lawsuit.”
Yeah? Do they warn them about the risks they were taking driving to the doctor’s appointment? The risk of high blood pressure sitting on one’s @$$ all day in the waiting room?
Point taken. “None of your damn business” is as good as “yes”. Which makes this an “ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies” scenario. I’m lying before I tell anyone what I’m holding.
You should remind these left-wing quacks that their medical mistakes cost 100,000 patients their lives in America every year.
How convenient that “doctors” can literally bury their mistakes.
Never trust a male attorney with a hypenated last name.
Nun Yuh...
The government and some commercial medical foundations have put a positive spin on EMR. The spin is that all your medical professionals will have access to your medical record at the touch of a key stroke. The down side is the government can get access.
Your private health information can be retrieved by the Federal Government for national security reason at any time.
Bottom line is do not tell a physician anything you would not want the FBI, TSA or BATF to know. If it ends up in your medical record the government will be able to easily retrieve that information.
This was no boating accident! (cue the JAWS music!)
My brother’s doctor is well aware that he owns guns. They went on a hunting trip together.
Our family doctor has never asked. If they want to hand me a brochure about “gun safety”, I’ll politely take it but it’s really none of their business.
Besides, nobody that would leave a loaded gun in reach of a small child is going to tell their doctor they do!
If a doctor is concerned enough, his or her office could give out gun safety pamphlets.
The risks of catching something from another sick patient in the waiting room?
dox??
I had a pediatrician give me a guns are hazardous to children lecture once, when I answered “yes” to the question.
Now I don’t answer the question at all except a shrug to my OBGYN who accepted “I work in downtown Dallas, sometimes in the early morning and weekends, and this ensures you will never had to treat me for rape” as a valid answer.
Horse nuggets! My father was a physician and I think he would say the same thing. Although he would suggest these "doctors" put their mission in a very colorfully put, but medically accurate, part of their anatomies.
Sure it is. Do they ask about gas heaters? (risk of CO poisoning) CFL bulbs? (mercury exposure) Cars? (auto accidents) Bath water? (scalding, drowning) Family dogs? (mauling) Household cleaners? (poison, potentially toxic fumes)
That sort of justification leads to endless intrusion, abdication of personal responsibility and an excessive burden on the medical system.
That is a barforama alright. She is saying that because she is an emotional adolescent who doesn't have a clue about cause and effect her patients should play along in order to be a Xanax substitute for her.
Don't know who this Moonbat is, but I have a hard time taking any "male" with 2 last names seriously!!!
I may be a little slow here but what business is it of any doctor to ask me or my family if we have weapons in the home?
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