Good on you. Do you think that the pediatrician should be punished for asking? If as a result of you telling the doc to mind his own business, he told you to find another doctor, how would you feel about it? Should he be punished for it?
When the woman who was prescribed anti-bleeding medication was questioned by and sent away from a pharmacy in Idaho, was this OK (see here)?
How dare doctors look after the health and safety of children in their care! Don’t they know that it might momentarily make terrible parents feel guilty?
I was the same way when the doctor got all up in our business, asking if what we were feeding our baby. Nosy bitch. Just because we took the child to her for a check-up and shots doesn’t mean she gets to ask us about basic questions related to the child’s well being. ENOUGH! THIS IS SOCIALISM!
Hmmm, this link (posted up thread) says that the Florida House passed the bill. It is now under consideration in the Senate. No mention what the governor thinks of the bill.
Whatever, it is still a fucking stupid law. Don’t you agree?
That’s the thing. Whether the home contains a gun has nothing to do with “basic questions related to the child’s well being.” The doctor is not going to prescribe medicine to cure “lives in a house with guns”. Owning guns is generally not a medical issue-with a possible exception for mental illnesses. There is generally no medical reason for a doctor to ask such a question. That said, I don’t think being a goddamn gun grabbing agenda whore should be a felony offense. A mere flogging on the courthouse lawn will suffice.
Indeed my first link was out of date, my apologies. The declaring it a felony punishable by fines and/or jail time was removed before final passage.
Now then, let me understand what you are saying. I’ll ignore the fact that the bill is not one that forces a doctor to provide care to someone no matter whether or not they own firearms or how they store them or what they do with them and ignore the fact that not one example was given of someone being refused care because they owned guns or stored them loaed unlocked even, that even the supporter of the law said that “people are not reporting” anything about doctors bullying them about guns. Nope. The law prevents any inquiry about gun ownership at all. It prevents me from even making sure that guns are stored safely or from engaging in a discussion about hunting. It would prevent a doctor from promoting the NRA Eddie Eagle program to households that own guns. It controls my speech. And that is something that you think is as it should be. As a doctor I should, by law, not be allowed to discuss subjects with my patients that may be interpreted in some circumstances, to conflict with my patient’s political POV.
Now I am someone who in fact does not believe in an absolute right to freedom of speech, but any limitations on it have to have a very strong justification. You are saying that this one person being told by one doofus doctor to remove the gun from his house justifies limting the speech of a whole class of people about an entire subject matter.
Sorry. But FUCK YOU!
And yet when they push laws forcing women seeking abortions to watch a sonogram of the fetus, they spin it as “helping women get the information they need”.
If they were straight-up they’d call it, “madatory gross-out abortion aversion therapy”.
If someone has loaded guns laying around the house it is a basic issue. Again, even the fuckin’ NRA recognizes that promoting safe storage and their interpretation of making sure that kids know how to deal with guns safely is important. Important enough that they promote discussing gun issue by the schools, which actually is an extension of the state, while I am not.
Flog yourself about the head for thinking that limiting my freedom of speech is justified because you are afraid that a few docs may look at guns and deaths from guns and conclude differently than you or even I do.
n/m
Correction, sort of. One example of someone kicked out of a practice because they would not answer. Response: doctor freedom of speech eliminated about guns. And this makes sense?
Bullshit. The doctor can prescirbe a “cure” by stating some “studies show that the risk of accidental shooting of children is lessened by 925% if gun owners use trigger locks or keep them in a safe, do you lock up your guns?” This can be contrasted by the whole pediatrician talk “Are you a smoker? Do you know that if you smoke in the house with your children the risk of cancer for them is increased by 2123.342%.” Or how about: “Do you use car seats with your children? Using car seats can reduce the risk of ejection from the vehicle during high speeds crashes.”
You see where this is going right? Doctors ask lots of questions that are none of their fucking business. From questions about flossing, sex practices and masturbation, time spent in the sun, types of activities, how many slices of bacon on your hamburger, how many sticks of butter consumed in a week, etc… It is their job to ask about lifestyle choices and explain when those choices are not healthy. It is a pediatrician’s job to ask the parent about their choices and explain how some lifestyle choices could be unhealthy for their children. This doesn’t have anything to with gun control because doctors have no power to make you lock up your guns, quit feeding your kids junk food, or stop smoking around your kids. It’s a stupid fucking law.
No, guns in the home DO relate to the child’s wellbeing, just like drugs, alcohol, knives, electrical outlets, attack dogs, and many other things some people might like having around and don’t like talking to strangers about, but absolutely have to acknowledge are legitimate safety concerns.
I don’t have a pediatrician since I’m nearing pasture age and have no children of my own, but I think that I would refuse to answer most of those questions if a pediatrician asked them about my household if I took a hypothetical child to see him.
Reason? Most of those aren’t inside the realm of what I personally believe should be the relationship between a pediatrician and his patient. As a (hypothetical) parent I think it is my right to decide the bounds of the relationship, regardless of the fact that the pediatrician is an expert–I would still be the parent.
The reason I don’t feel those issues are within the proper relationship (again, for my hypo-child only, not all children/pediatrician relationships in general) is because I do not believe it is the role of a pediatrician to help me safeguard my house against accidents. I’m not opposed to the questions as a concept, but I personally would just say “Don’t worry I’m not an idiot so I know how to take care of my own house.” I would hope the doctor (who I am paying and is thus someone who is supposed to be providing me a service) would back off at that point.
I know many parents are stupid. However I also think lots of people like myself have safely stored firearms, prescription medications, and et cetera for the majority of my adult life. It doesn’t take someone with a medical degree to explain to me how to safeguard a house against children, nor do I, someone with a history of binge drinking in my own youth, need to be told the dangers of it. Again, I don’t oppose the question, but I would respond that I personally didn’t need the doctor being involved in that way.
Wow, that is one pissed-off DSeid M.D. And understandably so.
Government needs to keep its big hairy paws out of what docs discuss with their patients as part of good medical practice, whether it’s gun safety, abortion or other issues. And if physicians decide they don’t want to continue treating a family having parents who endanger children (refusal to vaccinate comes to mind as well), that may or may not be a good idea but it’s not something for the state legislature to get involved in.*
Hopefully this stupid law will get shot down 
before passage.
By the way, taking the prize as far as I am concerned for asinine questions asked of patients, is the mandated (by practice guidelines and not the state) quizzing of emergency department patients as to whether they are suicidal. In at least one facility in which I practice, this seems to go across the board and involve not just patients being seen for mental health issues, but for infection, abdominal pain, etc. I’m not sure what my reaction would be if I went in with a nail embedded in my foot and the nurse/doc asked me “Do you ever feel like you want to go to sleep and never wake up?”, but it likely would not be printable in a family forum.
*there are medical board guidelines in every state so far as I know which cover a physician’s declining further involvement with patient care, to assure continuity of treatment.
I suspect there is a very high correlation between resentment over being asked about the conditions at home and shitty parenting.
Telling the pediatrician to mind their own business is one thing, having the government regulate the pediatrician / parent relationship is another. Why is this law needed? Why does the government need to step into this relationship and regulate its terms? Can’t the poor widdle gun owners tell the big bad doctors to back off? Poor widdle gun owners need the po pos to step in.
No, in all seriousness, I agree with those people who think it is none of the doctor’s business. I also see where the doctor is coming from; stories of accidental shootings by children are pretty common these days. Regardless, I see no reason for the government to regulate this and I am surprised about those conservatives who are always complaining about the “nanny state,” big government, and allowing professionals be true to their beliefs (i.e. pharmacists), being for this type of regulation.
I dropped into to post something along these lines.
Well Jackmannii there was a reason I opened this in The Pit and not GD.
This is not about gun control or gun rights. This is about the ability of one group with a political agenda to infringe upon my freedom of speech and decide by legislative fiat what is and is not good medical practice, taking it upon themselves to say that they know better than do the professional medical bodies and individual professionals.
Martin, you’d be amazed the good preventative guidance does. I get more adults to quit smoking than do most internists. I’ve gotten many kids to keep wearing their bike helmets in the face of their friends calling them dorks (and one call from a Mom who told me that the next week, after the kid started wearing it again, he’d had a fall and came in with a broken up helmet afraid Mom would be mad that he broke it). If you don’t want a pediatrician who believes in preventative guidance that’s fine. Don’t come to me if you don’t want to. No one is forcing you.
Does gun safety get into the most important list? In some communities it most certainly does. Of homes that have guns and kids 43% have at least one gun stored both not in a locked location and without a trigger lock. Enough kids die from accidental gun injuries that some states mandate safe storage with “Child Access Prevention to Firearms” laws. Some states even make leaving a firearm loaded and in a location where it is reasonable to believe that a child might gain access to it a felony, and those states have seen a significant decrease in accidental firearm deaths among children. One of those states, ironically enough, is Florida. Their law is the oldest and most stringent and resulted in an over 50% decrease in accidental child deaths by firearms. But if this current law is signed it would a be criminal for a pediatrician to identify who to advise that there is an Access law and to discuss how to comply with it.
You may not agree with the advice your doctor gives you. You may choose to ignore it. You may refuse to answer a question. Again, you have that right. If you do not like the speech I give as a doctor then don’t go to me. But do not infringe upon my right to say it because it might, or might not, be different that what you happen to think.
Is there any way this law survives a 1st Amendment challenge?
Almost certainly. States have pretty broad powers to limit the activities of professionals subject to licensing requirements, at least while they’re at work.