I’d be happy to do that.
I’m guessing that if the story is true at all, there are a few key sentences missing, although I can understand a pediatrician’s frustration with a parent who refuses to answer simple questions.
One of those things is not like the other. Diet, excercise, and use of sunscreen is an obvious medical issue, on which doctors have expertise. Keeping pool gates locked less so. I would find it personally surprising if non-medical stuff like pool gates, car seats, etc. are a part of a normal doctor visit. It just seems intuitively non-medical to me, same as if a doctor were asking if the kid studied hard enough to get into a good college. The advice may be solid, but outside the scope of the doctor-patient relationship.
That’s what I’d assumed, anyway. Which is why when the AMA among others start trying to push a “guns as a health issue” agenda, it seems out of place and obviously politicized. But perhaps I’m incorrect and these sorts of things come up all the time - is that the case? Do pediatricians routinely advise on safety issues that aren’t really medical in nature?
I’m not at all being disingenuous - my words were measured carefully to maintain some degree of neutrality. I’m actually trying to be helpful rather than argumentative - you guys don’t understand how many reasonable people you alienate to your other ideas due to your hardon for guns. When I was coming of age, the issue of gun control was definitely a big one in forming poor impression of democrats. If you (the general you) treat every gun rights advocate as if they were a crazy hateful birther or something, you alienate people who otherwise could be your ideological allies. You stereotype too much and refuse to understand that there is principled advocacy for rights that spans a much larger political base than the hard right.
But as I said - I mean the general you. Your posts have been measured and fine by me. But there are general assumptions here that haven’t been established.
- That this law is being described accurately
- That it has a realistic chance of being passed, and isn’t just one or two lone nuts in the legislature writing a law to be buried in committee to make a point. This would still be worthy of scorn, by the way, but it’s a much less serious situation than something that has a realistic shot at passing.
- That gun rights advocates are all in lockstep in supporting this measure
- That gun right advocates are the same subgroup of conservatives who also want pharmacists to have the right to deny contraceptive, who think that the government should not be involved in health care, etc., so that this particular group is being hypocritical
3 is the big one there. It’s the biggest assumption to make, yet everyone here assumes it. Because you know, all those gun nuts are the same people who are the birthers or the religious nuts who want to deny contraception, they’re all so dumb that we should just assume they go along with every dumb plan their evil political masters throw at them. There certainly aren’t principled, reasonable people who believe in gun rights - there are certainly no leftists or centrists that do. No, all those gun nuts can be safely discarded as idiots.
I’m saying this attitude comes at a cost. If you want to dismiss all birthers as idiots - that’s fine. There’s no legitimate reason to be a birther. People don’t take an intellectual and principled birther stance. All the people who are birthers are obviously so far gone that they’ll never be sympathetic to your world view. So you can safely dismiss them. But not so with gun rights advocates - many of us aren’t conservative, or if we are, it’s not always some blind groupthink. It’s an issue on which reasonable people can disagree on the specific measures to take or the values involved. It’s actually more politically broad than most issues - I know a lot of people who are either democrats and hate their party’s stance on the issue or independents who would otherwise lean democrat except for the gun control issue. By treating all of these people as if they were the hard-right mouth breathers, you only make yourselves look like arrogant dismissive assholes and keep people on the defensive.
In the same thread, we have people making the assumption that all gun rights advocates are nuts and retards, and then people getting offended that we’re oversensitive to the gun control machinations of the other side.
I’m telling you all that some of us believe in gun rights in the same way that we believe in other basic human rights, and for you to try to mock us and shit on us for it and assume the worst only alienates us, and you’d be surprised at how many of us aren’t what you think we are in terms of our political affiliations. The democratic party seems to understand recently that this is a losing issue for them for this reason (although I expect once things become less shittastic they’ll start focusing on trickier issues and gun control will come back), so maybe you might want to consider how your mischaracterization of gun rights advocates affects their perception of you.
I’ll be another NRA member on board with the “This is a goddamn stupid law” bandwagon. In point of fact, I just posted an e-mail to the national organization registering my displeasure.
Of course, I am that ostensibly rare creature: the Democrat with a Gun.
Like it or not, all of the following are true:
- proper securing of guns is a component of household safety, especially when children are involved.
- pediatricians have a legitimate interest in discussing it.
- pediatricians have a legitimate interest in “firing” patients who negligently do not heed their advice, and parents have a legitimate interest in “firing” pediatricians whom they find to be too nosy or political. The government doesn’t need to be involved in this relationship at this level
- the situation really isn’t all that analogous to the “pharmacists don’t have to dispense drugs if they have a conscience problem” thing–which, for the record, is also stupid as balls.
–Z, gun owner, is expecting a conversation about it with the pediatrician when the daughter is closer to being able to move under her own power.
I must commend you on arguing with vaguely related citations against arguments I never made!
I did not say pediatric interventions are not effective.
What I said was that parents who are “gun nuts” and are just leaving loaded firearms laying all over the house are probably the least likely to be interested in hearing or responding to such intervention.
While I think the label gun nut is highly overused (basically by a huge portion on this forum, since it leans so heavily to the left or to the outright stupid and evil such as YogSosoth) I have known people that leave loaded guns under each pillow in their couch, on tables, in various drawers throughout their kitchen and various other places. People who do that aren’t doing it out of ignorance but out of a crazed view that they need loaded guns everywhere. That’s very different from parents who just leave loaded guns out unprotected because they haven’t thought about it or don’t know any better. Your study certainly doesn’t address the hypothesis I had and isn’t a really interesting response to it. Interesting in its own right perhaps, but as with our last go around you should probably quit trying to suggest I made arguments I did not, I’m not prone to just pretending along with people.
That’s pretty much the natural reaction to the gun control crowd refering to every success as “a good first step” when it’s obvious their last step goal is that no one will have any firearms at all.
Yes.
Thank you.
Then be surprised. Things that cause death and disability in children or even effect their over all well being are considered medical to us. Drowning accidents are a medical issue. School issues even, from possible LD to mental health issues, to understanding their rights within an educational context, yup. Part of the general pediatric practice too. It is what we do. Our job. Really.
It is that assumption you have that it is not I think that makes you as upset with the medical take on gun violence as you are. To the degree that the number of deaths in America, especially of young Americans, is increased by the availability if firearms, it is fair game for medicine to address it as an issue. Of course that does not mean that the “expert” panel analyses are correct interpretations of the evidence, or that all that gets called “evidence based” is without bias from member political POVs. Disagreeing with the expert panel conclusions is fair to do, and lord knows I do with some frequency. Jackmannii earlier begrudged just one of the silly things expert panels advise us to do. They can do their job less than well, but it is still their job to do it. You have, in past threads, helped convince me that some of their conclusions are overstated and that better enforcement of existing laws would do more good than more laws. I am personally convinced that the risks of gun ownership and the alleged benefits of gun ownership are both exaggerated and both fairly small. I’d rather focus on preventing gun thefts and straw man purchases as I think the diversion of legal weapons into the illegal market is the best target of intervention, followed by promoting secure storage in the home. (Having Eddie Eagle tell kids to “tell an adult about the gun you find” seems a bit laughable though.) But the “experts” disagreeing with my assessment does not mean that a cause of avoidable deaths is not a medical issue, addressable by the same tools as any other causes of death and disability.
I have developed a great respect for some gun advocates after many a debate on these boards. But the stereotype is hard to dispel when the NRA takes positions like advocating this law and when every attempt to discuss the subject in moderate terms is taken by the spokes people as a stealth first step to confiscate their rifles. The rhetorical polarization very much is something both sides do.
- Several articles have described it. The calling it a felony punishable by years in prison and millions of dollars of fines was dropped, but otherwise it is as was described.
- It passed. Now it just awaits the governors signature and he is expected to sign it.
- No group is all in lockstep. I think that most gun owners and gun rights supporters are smart enough and believe enough in freedom of speech that they would be against this law. But the gun rights leadership is for it. The activists are for it. The lobbyists who represent them are for it. Their public voice is for it. The belief of the politicians is that the base of the Right that votes in primaries is for it.
And I’m telling you that the other side has nuanced positions too. But when shit like this law happens, when those who just don’t know why the Assault weapon ban is stupid because they well just don’t know are mocked, rather than having those who do know what really would make sense to restrict and what does not offer to work to create something that makes sense and that provides balance for the gun user and collector, well it makes finding that mutual respect a bit more difficult.
Admittedly, part of the thing preventing a meeting of the minds is that the public loud voices on one side have a position they believe is backed by facts and evidence, and the public loud voices on the other side take positions based on how things feel without regard for reality, so the moderates in all cases get drowned out.
Above statement intentionally vague enough to apply in either direction, depending on the law in question. 
You may want to reread you own post. You did not say “gun nuts” - you said “people who are all about leaving guns unsecured around their homes” and that “their physician speaking to them about it is highly unlikely to have any significant affect” … and in the context of this thread the physician is often a pediatrician.
And those exact words of yours, included in my post, were what I responded to.
Read your own post before you say you didn’t say what you clearly did say.
And the voice of the delusionally paranoid cohort that gives the reasoned voices a bad rep.
It is analogous. One of the arguments used by those who favored allowing pharmacist to make their own decisions regarding dispensation of certain drugs was that the patient could always go to another pharmacist for service. Those against it argued that there were individuals who might not have access to the services of another pharmacy for a variety of reasons (ex. someone in a small rural town). These same arguments apply to medical doctors. If a pediatrician refuses to see a patient for whatever reason then finding another doctor might not be a simple matter (ex. someone living in a rural area).
Broadly speaking, both situations raise questions about the ethical requirements the medical provider has to those who seek treatment. It it ethical for a pharmacist to refuse to dispense prescribed medication because of their own personal ethics? Is it ethical for a medical doctor to refuse to treat a patient because answers about the number of firearms in the home are not forthcoming? Keeping in mind that analogous only means that you can draw an analogy and not that both situations have to be perfectly alike, I’m having a hard time seeing how anyone hear can make valid comparisons between the two situations.
Odesio
As a gun owner and past NRA member, I would be happy to write to the NRA expressing my displeasure with this particular law if the fines had stayed in. As they have been taken out I’m more ambivalent about it.
Several issues of concern:
-
Without specific training in gun safety how is a doctor qualified to give expert advice in this area? And if the doctor is just going give general information like gun related death statistics in gun-owner households, how is this any more relevant than quoting facts about car deaths, tub drowning deaths, electrical deaths and so on?
-
Does anyone here think that people who have guns in their homes and have kids in their home really don’t think there is potential for danger? We’ve seen those stories hundreds of time. People will not change the way they store or handle guns based on what their doctor says. In other words, how much good will this do?
-
I’m also concerned that all doctors can remain neutral on this issue.
-
I would prefer my doctor or pediatrician stick to my concerns - that’s what I’m paying for.
So if you want the analogy to hold, the the pharmacist is obligated to give the patient a 30 days notice that future prescriptions will not be filled and until then provide services. Also the pharmacist is obligated to help find another one for after that period if it is otherwise difficult to find one.
PlainJane, so you don’t have a problem with making speech illegal so long as the teeth of the enforcement aren’t so obscene?
As to what a pediatrician can effectively accomplish in terms of advice - could be as little as finding out that loaded guns are kept unlocked in the house and then stating “Well please take this hand out from the NRA that reviews why it is important to store guns unloaded and locked away from those who should not have access to them. Did you know that Florida has a law that makes storing loaded guns where a kid can get them a felony punishable by jail time?” Doing that is soon to be a crime.
Studies that show how many people actually do store weapons loaded and where kids could get to them and the evidence that brief interventions may be effective have already been provided. But whether or not the intervention would make a difference (and perhaps my car seat and helmet lectures rarely result in much behavior change either, lord knows the data shows that our efforts on obesity rarely do much) is not really what’s important here. If I want to bang my head up against the wall trying to treat and prevent pediatric obesity, for example, why is it the state’s concern if I rarely make a difference?
When you go to the doctor would you really want them to not ask questions about your health habits unless your brought up the specific subject first? Unless you’ve brought up the issue of your blood pressure measurement being high I should not address the subject? If I hear a murmur I should shut up about it if you came in for some other reason? It wasn’t your concern …
The NRA is calling this a privacy issue, and that is part of what is so odd. Patient information is private and no one forces any one to answer a question while in that private circumstance. Gun ownership is hardly the most sensitive information we docs ask about. We cover sexual orientation, practices, illegal drug use, if they are suicidal or not … If asking if guns are in the house is too private then I really can’t ask most of the questions I ask. I’m your doctor; I’m going to ask about private information. Don’t answer if you don’t want to, that’s your right. I can’t refuse to care for you if you don’t. Don’t follow my advice if you don’t like it or you think I am wrong. Current patient abandonment laws already cover the issue that care cannot be refused because a patient has views other than you like. I can dismiss a patient for refusing to cooperate with treatment and for being abusive or threatening but not for not answering a question and when I do dismiss I must care for them for at 30 days and help them find my replacement if they have difficulty doing so.
This story, and this one, are two damn good reasons not to be a doctor in the US.
The doctor has an ethical obligation to care for the child, whether or not those bruises, the meth lab downstairs, or myriad other things are what the parent is “paying for” the doctor to talk about. And I doubt conscientious parents get defensive at the mere question – they know those questions are boilerplate.
Is it boilerplate for doctors in your area to ask their patients if they have a basement meth lab? On myriad other things? Or is it more likely the questions relate to some politically charged issue, like oh I don’t know, guns, smoking, or seat belts for instance?
Several years back when seemingly overnight every doctor in my area that I visited started asking if I wore my seat belt every time I drove, I started asking in return if they used a condom every time they had sex. Funny, the response was generally “none of your business”. Exactly.
I completely understand the desire and the need to get certain information into the hands of patients in at risk groups. I am just not convinced the dissemination is done equally or consistently across all groups.
Those things are only “politically charged” because self-serving people make them so. To the rest of us they are basic safety things that don’t have to be politicized.
Did you ask the doctor to take off his shirt? Did you ask him if he had a family history of Diabetes? Or did you understand that the doctor-patient relationship is not a symetrical one?