Posted on 04/23/2011 8:26:13 AM PDT by marktwain
The first funeral Dr. Louis St. Petery attended as a young doctor was for a 2-year-old.
His tiny patient's 5-year-old sibling had discovered a loaded handgun in dad's bedside table, aimed it at the toddler and pulled the trigger.
"That made quite an impression," said St. Petery, a pediatric cardiologist.
It's standard practice now for pediatricians to ask safety questions of parents: Is there a pool in the home? Do you have car seats and use seat belts? Do you have a gun in the house, and if so, is it locked up, with ammunition stored and locked separately?
The Florida Legislature is poised to pass a bill that would restrict doctors' ability to ask such questions.
The bills have passed all committees and the House is expected to vote Tuesday, and the Senate may soon follow.
Referred to by the National Rifle Association as the "Patient's Gun Privacy Rights" legislation, the bills say a health professional cannot ask about gun ownership unless they have a good medical reason, and they may not enter facts about gun ownership into the medical record, "if the practitioner knows that such information is not relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others."
St. Petery said the legislature is favoring the Second Amendment right to bear arms over the First Amendment freedom of speech.
"I think we as physicians are within our rights to discuss any issue we deem appropriate," he said.
In an alert to its members, the NRA said the bill addresses patients' concern that computerized medical records will be used by the government, or by insurance companies intent on denying health care coverage to the owners of firearms.
To doctors like St. Petery, who say they're asking about guns simply to prevent accidental injury, the NRA's thinking is paranoid. In response, the NRA tells its members that they have every right to be paranoid about doctors and medical staff, who cause six times more accidental deaths through medical errors than firearms do, according to CDC figures.
"Physicians have plenty of room to work in their own back yards to stop accidental deaths in keeping with their 'first do no harm' medical oaths," the NRA said.
The bill was a response, in part, to a news story that appeared last summer in the Ocala Star-Banner newspaper. A doctor asked Amber Ullman to find another physician after she was offended and angered by the "do you have a gun in your home" question.
"Whether I have a gun has nothing to do with the health of my child," the 26-year-old mom of three told the newspaper. "It's a very invasive and personal question."
St. Petery says there's nothing personal about the question. He has a gun in his own home.
But the fact is, injuries are the leading cause of death of people ages 1 to 44, and emergency room data shows that shooting deaths are the second highest cause of injuries among those ages 10 to 24, behind car accidents.
Suicide by firearms was the fourth leading cause of injury for those over age 15.
He knows that 40 percent of families have a gun at home. Studies show that keeping those guns locked and ammunition properly stored and locked in a separate location reduces the chance that a gun will be improperly used. So by having the conversation, lives can be saved, he said.
"The best treatment for diseases is prevention, not treating it after it happens. With injuries, it's the same thing, prevention is much more effective," he said. "We as pediatricians have a hard time treating death."
The original versions of the bills, HB 155 and SB 432, would have imposed fines of up to $10,000 and criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for improperly handling information about gun ownership, he said. A compromised worked out between the NRA and the Florida Medical Association simply raises the possibility of medical board discipline, and allows doctors to ask about guns if they feel the question is relevant to the patient's medical care.
St. Petery, who is executive vice president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Tallahassee, says the FMA is at odds with his group. The watered-down version of the bill now accepted by the medical association still holds serious consequences for doctors, and he predicted it will have a chilling effect.
"You are going to have to get an attorney, and there's going to be an increase in what it costs you for malpractice insurance," he said. "Few physicians understand the difference between a penalty that is criminal verses referring you to the Florida Board of Medicine."
A. “None of your F’n business”
That is the only response required. Screw em...
Ah, and there is the rub isn't doc. You are a part of class of (elitist) people who are placing your opinions, wants and desires above those of the child's parents and proper care givers. To me that proves you are only interested in your own narrow minded motives, to evolve statism, to join in with the state to deny its citizens perhaps the single most important constitutional right of all the enumerated rights in that document.
You poor enlightened but misguided ignoramus fools, you are being had but those of us who see through your attempts are not going to let that happen.
Out of those 568 deaths of 0 to 4 year old’s who drowned did or did not drown in a 5 gallon bucket of water? A wash pan of water in the kitchen sink? Or...or...or...? Point is stastics don’t mean anything unless put in context.
"I think we as physicians are within our rights to discuss any issue we deem appropriate."
And I, as a self-respecting individual, can tell you to mind your own business. If you're smart, you'll drop it right there.
People who do this, regardless of their particular stripe, are just abusing their 'authority' to promote their own private agenda. Treat accordingly.
As you brought the subject up, how old are you?
26 as of next week.
Well, I've never run into an antigun doctor in Florida, but I guess getting my medical care at the VA might have something to do with that. Gee, ya think? LOL But watch out for public school teachers. Private school teachers, for that matter. Even teachers at Christian private schools! Sometimes I think I'm the only pro gun/ pro 2nd Amendment teacher in the county! But I know I'm not alone. Some of my peers in the system even shoot IDPA. All four of them. Out of about 30 thousand. Maybe.
Good one.
Don't act like raving rabid animals, you won't get muzzled, umm kay?
Ah, I think we've identified the root of the problem. Standard practice should be setting the broken arm or whatever I brought the kid in for, and keeping your flapping trap SHUT.
The stupidity defense doesn't go over well with your patients when you're charging them $400 an hour for your time.
My old Florida Doctor retired maybe a year ago. He used to have “American Rifleman” in his waiting room. This bothered me a little as the NRA has been pretty weak at times but it is better than it could be.
My new Doctor keeps several national defense and Navy magazines in his office.
If your child’s arm is broken, they’ll be too busy trying to get you to admit that YOU abused the child and broke the arm to ask about your firearms.
You are obviously not a Dem. A true lib would say that statistics dont mean anything unless they are put in a context that serves the cause of socialism. But you're right; I didn't reference a dataset that answers your question. The data say in summary that children under age one most often drown in bathtubs, buckets (30 per year in 2 gal to 5 gal buckets, generally at ages 5-15 months), and toilets, and those aged 1 to 4 years most often drown in residential swimming pools - usually when they were not supposed to be in the pool and a parent had seen them inside within five minutes before drowning, usually on weekends and in the summer of course.
Boundaries in the doctor-patient relationship derive naturally from the relationships fiduciary nature. In general, "treatment boundaries can be defined as the set of rules that establishes the professional relationship as separate from other relationships and protects the patient from harm. A patient who seeks medical or psychiatric treatment is often in a uniquely dependent, anxious, vulnerable, and exploitable state. In seeking help, patients assume positions of relative powerlessness in which they expose their weaknesses, compromise their dignity, and reveal intimacies of body or mind, or both." (7)Thus compromised, the patient relies heavily on the physician to act only in the patients interest and not the physicians. A doctor must put the patients needs before his own. But a physician reverses the priorities when because of passionate political beliefs he tries to influence his patient against guns. This physician puts his own need to "do something" about the perceived evil of guns before the needs of his patient. He crosses the line from healer to political activist. Such doctor-on-patient political activism is recognized in Epstein and Simons Exploitation Index (8) as a boundary violation.
Just as some physician sexual transgressors may insist their sex relations with a patient are therapeutic, the activist doctor may protest that he only seeks to prevent "gun violence." However, the conduct of the medical activists strongly indicates that their interest in patients guns is political, not therapeutic.
The AAP, ACP, and AMA are members of the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network, based in Chicago. HELP is an exclusive advocacy group dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who disagree with HELPs anti-gun agenda are barred from attending HELPs conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization. HELPs founder and leader Dr. Katherine Christoffel has compared guns to viruses that must be eradicated. (9) The groups militant advocacy has no place for differing viewpoints on firearms, and apparently neither do the medical organizations which have signed on as HELP members.
"Mom and dad, if you have firearms in your home, make sure they are safely stored so the kiddos cannot get to them."
One set of parents says: "We don't have any guns." Ped: "OK"
Second set of parents: "OK"
Thank you for posting that source.
Financial difficulties are one of the leading causes of marital disputes that can lead to domestic violence, resulting in injuries that require medical attention - shall the physician discuss bank statements and tax returns as well?
Actually, that's an exception to my previous rule. If they're going to accuse me of abusing my kid, they probably SHOULD be aware of whatever firearms I might own.
Obamacrap. The doctor is in effect a plumber. People hire plumbers either because they lack the specialized knowledge needed or the time. The doctor is your subcontractor for medical treatment, nothing more. He's a hired gun. He works for you, not the other way around.
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