Posted on 07/30/2014 12:46:11 PM PDT by Q-ManRN
As a pediatrician, I have one, straightforward professional obligation: to safeguard and support the health and wellbeing of my patients. In my case, those patients are children, but you could change the age range of the people coming into the office and apply that statement to any medical provider.
Asking about guns in the house is no exception. When I ask parents if there are firearms in the home, and if so how they are secured, it is for the sole purpose of keeping their children safe.
Physicians in Florida are being threatened with a law that, if enacted, will seriously hamper their ability to do their jobs. The Firearms Owners' Privacy Act, passed in 2011, would subject medical providers to fines and a potential loss of licensure for asking patients about gun ownership or recording that information in the medical record if it is not “relevant to the patient's medical care or safety.”
Gun advocacy groups such as the National Rifle Association have long opposed the AAP’s efforts to strengthen gun laws. But the Florida law has no effect on gun ownership or access. Its insidious reach enters into medical offices and chokes off the free-speech rights of the people trying to work there.
As much as the NRA and its ilk want to deny it, having a gun in the home is a risk factor for serious injury or death. Acknowledging that fact is not the same thing as taking the gun away. The Florida law seeks to “protect” gun owners from even having to be informed about truths they’d prefer to ignore, and seeks to cast medical providers in an unflattering light for having the temerity to question them.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Ditto that
They have the right to commit Assisted Suicide too!
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Let’s assist them in that endeavor.
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If any doctor asks me about guns in the house, I will respond with, “Doctor, are you familiar with the concept of a boundary violation?” They can lose their malpractice coverage for engaging in such, and I would not hesitate to remind them of that.
Oh, and I would never go back to that doctor or that practice, and I’d let them know why.
“Tell them to “Bugger OFF!!” then.”
Just say No. Anything else means yes.
Now if we can get the rest of the courts to do that same we'll be making progress!
If the government has the power to forbid a doctor from asking certain questions about habits, then that same government has the power to require that doctors ask certain questions about habits. I don't buy that.
“having a gun in the home is a risk factor for serious injury or death.”
So are all those Assault Knives women keep in their kitchens. More men are attacked and killed by those than women and children are by guns. We should jail every liberal chick that keeps Assault Knives out where children can get to them, strip her of her children, never to see them again, and lock the crazy and irresponsible liberal up for life.
I have one, straightforward professional obligation: to safeguard and support the health and wellbeing of my patients.
Perhaps you don't care about future patients, at least not until they are out of the womb.
Having a shovel in the house also bring a risk of serous injury, Knifes even more frequent risk.
“The doctor does have a First Amendment right to ask about guns; however, this issue has more to do with professional standards that govern his speech. As a healthcare professional bound by those standards, he cannot ask you about non-medical issues using his professional status in order to justify his own political beliefs.
There is no medical reason to discuss how parents choose to defend their families just because there is a small chance a child could be accidentally shot. Responsible parents would be aware of that obvious danger and take steps to avoid that situation, just like they would for many other apparent hazards in their home.”
Then this is a matter for the profession and the standards setting and licensure organizations, who are mostly self-regulating. The state legislature has no business here.
I don’t think that dangerous conditions in the life of the patient are “non-medical”. I wonder what other government imposed gag owners you would support. Should be prevent a doctor from asking whether the parents use a car seat, or whether the home has outlet plugs, or whether adult medications are stored out of reach of the child? If a peds patient presents as obese, would be ok with you if the doc asked about family dining and shopping habits?
Yes, but do you really want the government to decide if a doctor can ask about shovels?
I think we're better off letting doctors decide what they want to ask.
“Yes, but do you really want the government to decide if a doctor can ask about shovels?”
As a rule i don’t think the Government should be dictating what any business says or does. But as the Federal Government thou standards organizations has already crossed that bridge thus creating the problem in the first place.
I just remember how I lost all respect for my doctor when he did ask about guns when it had nothing to do with his job whatsoever. What would you think he will do with that otherwise useless information?
Simply put I lost all respect for my doctor and faith in the confidentiality of what ever i might share with him when he asked that question.
It turned out later that my FORMER doctor had been advice to gather such ill-relevant information by some health bureaucracy.
Asking doctors as standards to gather medically revilement information compromises doctor patent trust, while opening the door to further abuse. No doctor should ever ask you (for reporting proposes) any question that is not medically necessary to his job.
That is precisely what the Florida law says, Doctors can ask about guns if they got a medical reason for it.
Hi Q-ManRN, won,t you come in and sit a spell, cup of coffee? You are spot on!
I realize their egos are such that they think I come to them to “keep my children safe” but in reality I bring them there because the kid has colic, or tonsillitis, or needs his shots or they won’t let him in school. Despite his opinion, his knowledge of and wisdom about non-medical topics are undoubtedly less than mine (If he’s spent more time learning medical stuff than I, it stands to reason I know more about non-medical stuff than he does), not needed, and not welcome. Give the kid a shot, set his arm, or whatever, and keep your pedantic, superior attitude to yourself, azzhole.
However? First Amendment right to ask, however???
I guess if someone might say something you don't like, there's nothing wrong with creating a new government regulation.
Plus, any doctor chafing at the bit to ask this question may well have liberal leanings, which is just another reason to assume his opinion is less informed, less wise, and in general inferior to my own.
You may have seen those you tube clips...”don’t talk to the police” and how the cops will lie to get you to incriminate your self? I work in in health care and I can tell you that in terms of personal rights and what can legally be used against you, in some cases one should “not talk to your doctor”!
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