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.
A little less than 10K are homicides and about 20K are suicides.
I traveled through the state twice, once on my way to Maine and once on the way back. We didn't stop within the borders for any reason except to use the highway rest area. I wasn't willing to buy food, gas, or lodging there, but I was willing to p!ss on it.
What moral implications. To me these intrusive busybodies deserve as much honesty and respect as any agents of the state asking if I am harboring any Jews (or smokers or fatties or angry white males).
The road to totalitarianism is paved by the servants of control freaks.
What do you figure the odds that these morally superior healthcare professionals are asking these questions of the demographic that makes up the majority of gun violence statistics? *crickets chirping*
Many times that number of deaths are caused by medical mistakes.
ROTFLMAO!
A few things to keep in mind here, people:
1) Whatever answer you give is likely to be recorded and you have no assurance that your answer will stay in the doctor’s office and not make it to the police station, or to a social worker’s office. Or just into a government database accessed by anyone that might want to check.
(the following is my opinion...take it for what it’s worth)
2) The best answer is a polite “no”. Say that, and case closed.
3) The next best answer is a polite “yes”, and to say that you keep them locked up and they’re mainly for hunting.
4) The worst answer is “none of your damn business” as it will not only be recorded as a “yes”, but you’ll also be labeled as an unstable domestic threat.
5) An answer that’s almost as bad as above is to respectfully decline - as that shows you have guns, but you’re not interested in learning about gun safety (of course not true, but that’s how they see it)
Also keep in mind that doctors are now asking kids (as happened to me), and once this gets well-established, then it can easily be applied to school teachers and anyone else. In these cases, as in several other cases (like if an adult asks your kid if he’s spanked), you MUST teach your kid to lie (at the threat, sometimes legit, of being taken away from his parents) and have him prepared for the questions.
The only way to fight this stuff is through changing the laws, or simply not taking the kids to a doctor.
NY'ers have absolutely RUINED New Hampshire...it is getting harder and harder to find people that were actually BORN here.
I tell everyone I am a pacifist. ( A well armed, highly trained pacifist with lots of ammo )
If he's not a proctologist, he should be, but then he'd give the good ones a bad name.
That being said, there's one fellow I mildly don't regret shortly becoming a socialist slave.
“I only ask about guns as part of the homicidal and suicidal interviews, and laws which would prohibit THAT are foolish.”
I think most of us don’t have a problem about asking if there’s cause. It’s the out-of-the-blue question that’s unnerving.
I wonder if the Feds are going to start matching these answers with 4473 records and FFL & C & R records to determine any discrepancies and start asking followup questions.
Medical Malpractice causes 195,000 deaths per year in the United States! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_malpractice) If this wacko is really interested in the health of his patients, he shouldn’t be asking them about the number of guns they own, but rather, how often they see a doctor.
first off this needed a barf alert.
secondly and most importantly it would be ‘See Ya Doc, its been real’.
My MD is well armed himself, and I recently promised to take him to my club’s range once the weather cools a bit...he doesnt like public ranges and I dont blame him.
“.....will be used to make a very biased assessment and then fed directly to NICS as a disqualifier....”
Exactly! The arrogance of this fizzician is appalling. I’ll bet if the patient says “That’s none of yours or the state’s business”, the good doctor will reply,
“Very well, comrade. Your attitude is noted.”
(Missing Barf Alert alert, BTW)
LOL!!!!!!
That’s probably the best response to that question!,,,,
LOL!!!!!!
That’s probably the best response to that question!,,,,
Doctors kill more people than guns and cars combined.
Actually, that’s a good question and good reason for the MD in the article to have his credentials removed.
Yes, everything which goes into your medical histories may now be entered into the patient healthcare record, which is intended to be immediately accessible to all healthcare practitioners in the healthcare system.
This includes Hospital admissions, insurance, labs, emergency rooms, doctor’s groups, pharmacies, and the patient. It is intended to be a life-long record, if not possibly longer for statistical evaluation.
Entries into the record include notes by assistants which might include off-the-cuff remarks by the patient, which in the future might reveal a trend in mental degeneration. If a patient repeatedly curses out or threatens the healthcare provider, some might use that as evidence to either deny service or worse as evidence of a mental disorder to justify state action to institutionalize a patient.
The point to be made is this record has in the past raised serious privacy issues. Advocates assert the record is required to be able to properly assess a patient’s condition in an emergency or during some medical procedures.
Such a mechanism would also afford those with ulterior goals to use the system as a library of dossiers on the entire population.
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