Posted on 07/25/2010 6:20:15 PM PDT by Suck My AR-16
Family and pediatrician tangle over gun question
It was a question Amber Ullman least expected Wednesday from her children's pediatrician.
Do you keep a gun in the house?
When the 26-year-old Summerfield woman refused to answer, the Ocala doctor finished her child's examination and told her she had 30 days to find a new pediatrician and that she wasn't welcome at Children's Health of Ocala anymore.
"Whether I have a gun has nothing to do with the health of my child," said the mother of three girls.
more> http://www.ocala.com/article/20100724/ARTICLES/7241001/1402/NEWS?Title=Family-and-pediatrician-tangle-over-gun-question
(Excerpt) Read more at ocala.com ...
It was the discussion about the shots that made me start to steer clear. (And the fact that my daughter just never gets anything more than a mild cold, or twice a stomach flu, but it wasn’t even a long enough time to get worried about it.)
During a check up with my teen the doctor told her that she was going to give her a hepatitis shot. I was not in the examining room with the doctor and nurse.
My daughter came out immediately to tell me that the doctor wanted to give her a shot without speaking to me first.
That was our last visit to that pediatrician who had been her doctor since birth. The doctor’s excuse........well she will be sexually active soon since she’s a teenager so the inoculation is imperative.
Suddenly the AMA believes they own our children.
Thank you for correcting my misinterpretation. The regional and state medical boards ought to be informed of this misuse of implied authority though, shouldn’t they?
If this was a HEP A vaccine it has NOTHING to do with sexual activity. You should read up on the vaccine and its risks vs. its benefits.
If it was HEP B vaccine, that has been standard for all newborns for over 20 years and I am shocked your teenageer hasn’t had it.
I am seeing bouncing balls with this post.
bump
I am seeing a know it all on FR tonight.
So,is it your belief that doctors must do what the State requires, every thing that’s legal, or is it just everything the patient wants?
How about abortions, “physician assisted death?” Or how about unlimited drugs or treatments of whatever kind, because the patient demands them?
Doctors are not slaves of the State, yet. We are professionals who must make decisions based on what we know - sometimes on what we think we know or even on the “standard of care” imposed on our medical judgment.
The APA standards are for the doc to ask about guns, because the Academy believes there’s a health risk.(There’s no real data about the health risk, because there’s no real data about gun ownership and “exposure.”)
In Texas, we can dismiss any patient for any reason, as long as we don’t abandon them - usually that means that we must provide emergency care for 30 days. No referral or explanation is necessary.
If a patient doesn’t like the personally held beliefs of the doctor - or vice versa - or if the patient doesn’t trust the doctor to use good judgment and act in his or her best interests, one or both should recognize the problem before a real health crisis comes up.
Good answer. Thank you.
(reminds me of what one of my psych attendings said when a fellow med student was outraged by a patient on the locked ward: “What do you expect? He’s crazy!”)
The doctor feels he has a right to ask such questions, and the patient has the right to tell him to go to hell, its none of his business, but he just lost your business....Lose a few patients this way and the questions will stop.....
Do doctors ask and try to advise their patients about their financial planning? Do they try to sell them real estate? Do ER physicians try to advise advise car crash victims about safe driving practices?
Why should a doctor doing the same thing with one tiny little sliver of home safety counseling, without any kind of certification or credentialing to do so, be permitted to commit this kind of politically-motivated ethical boundary violation without any consequences? If nobody calls him on it, he'll just keep doing it.
This is not a mere "difference of opinion" in the fiduciary relationship between the doctor and patient. The doctor is holding himself forth as an authority on a subject which is outside his authority. Will their malpractice insurance cover them if they're counseling people on subjects for which they are not certified?
There is, in fact, real data about the health risk, and when you cut through Kellermann and the VPC's cherry-picking and manipulation, the data indicates that there is no meaningful net health risk.
Debunking a Pro-Gun Control Study Using Its Own Stats
Yet leftists never let the facts get in the way of their causes.
As I've often explained, I assumed that user name when I was living next door to an Islamist compound -- mosque, madrassa, and innumerable fullblown whackjobs. Eventually I moved. The memory lingers on. :(
I was referring to the State licensing agency.
I should have expressed myself more clearly.
This has been going on in the medical community for years. It’s on the ubiquitous questionaire it seems I must fil out every time I visit my GP. I simply writw “none of your business”. Never gottwn any blowback in all the years I’ve been seeing him.
This pediatrition is obviously an anti-gun Marxist. I’m amazed at these people who deplore “gun violence” but are absolutely gaga about abortion. And they seem to derive a special thrill from late term abortion. You know, the procedure where a nearly full-term baby’s head is permitted to exit the vagina, is punctured with a sharp object and then has its brains sucked out. Even better, the butchers claim to be able to prove the human baby victim feels no pain. Criminals being executed are treated more humanely.
Just LIE the them. And make sure your kids never squeal that you have them. Our daughter gave a good lesson about that last night. Her friend went to private school, had to be interviewed to get in. She talked a lot about her parents GUNS. The parents were then drilled by the interviewer about it. Turns out they were both LEO, so then it was OK with the interviewer. But if they hadn’t been LEO I suspect it would NOT have been ok. This was back 20 years ago. So it will be worse today with the anti-gun fever.
I would recommend, if you feel the question is an inappropriate “assault” or intrusion in some way, that you politely deflect the question by going on the offensive with a question of your own: “Am I required to answer that question, doctor?” Only that, politely asked, and repeatedly asked if the question comes at you again.
If the doctor answers, “Yes”, then continue on the offensive by politely asking to see in writing where that is codified in policy or the law. “Doctor, can you please show me in writing where your patients are required to answer that question?”
If he does show you something in writing, deflect again: “Doctor, can you tell me where I can write to about appealing or changing this policy?”
If all else fails, and it can’t be worked out, move on to a new doctor. If he moves you on, good riddence, yes?
This has been going on for years...
I’d keep going to that doctors office, and w2hen they decide to refuse treatment or care, then, you might have something to take legal action about...
Till then I’d call their bluff, and if they did something stupid in the meantime...Well, they might have something to worry about then, wouldn’t they???
Oh, yeah, I fully agree. I was just pointing out that the situation wasn’t as bleak as that the people you needed to report them to were the people who were telling them to do this. The AMA is another good example. They sometimes come out with some bit of leftist tripe and people are impressed because “American Medical Association” sounds pretty universal and they assume the AMA speaks with the voice of all the doctors in the US, when in fact most doctors aren’t members.
Hepatitis is a terrible disease that is not always spread by sexual contact. I doubt your doctor even said that to you now that I see your bizarre reaction to my post.
Your Dr. was likely attempting to give her HEP A and protect her from a disease that is spread mostly by food contamination.
I bet your daughter already had Hep B vaccines and you don't even know, remember, or understand that she did. Why don't you check her vaccination history instead of mailing me.
You hit the nail on the head. This will be a de facto way to register guns...by putting this info in medical records and then giving the government access to those records. I have been asked that question as well, and have declined to answer it, but the doctor did not care.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.