The Florida legislature is merely looking out for us guys.
As soon as a Pediatrician with an agenda gets through with the wife, here’s what we’ll hear throughout her pregnancy and until the kid leaves for college: “BUT THINK OF THE BABY!”
I just wanted to weigh in on the notion of what I perceive a doctor’s job to be. I really don’t see it as advising me on the safety of my home. I would be shocked if a doctor asked if I had a gun. As shocked as I would be if he asked if I own a chain saw. Or an axe. What’s he going to say, “Well, sir, don’t let 3-year-old Johnny play with the chainsaw”?
But take the extreme positions from both ends away and I can’t get worked up about any of it.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected any better. To assume I am pro gun, or think the OP is a socialist is simply being stereotypical. I know it might be hard to believe but I have always worn my seat belt, and always were a helmet. Yet still don’t see any point in a doctor asking about either. For one, a doctor is virtually powerless to do anything about gun safety, seat belt use, or helmet use. Two, what little they can do, information and explanation of the dangers they should do for all patients. Anything less would seem to be cheating their less than honest patients out of their full wisdom.
I’ve never smoked. Never had to answer yes to the smoking question. Never been warned about the dangers of smoking by a doctor. Is there no potential that I could become a smoker? Is the doctor not interested in mitigating the dangers to my health until I have taken up an unhealthy practice?
To me this issue seems pretty simple. The Second Amendment gives you the right to own a gun. It does not give you the right to not have to listen to opinions or facts about gun ownership you may not like. And it certainly doesn’t give you the right to make those opinions and facts illegal.
The First Amendment covers that issue: Freedom of Speech. You have the right to own a gun and somebody else has the right to try to persuade you not to own a gun.
And I’ll add that this is one of the more unprofessional things a doctor can do, and I have confronted other physicians about this. It’s completely inappropriate to use the doctor-patient relationship to influence someone’s politics.
It’s been at least a decade since gun control was even on the radar for Democrats as a whole. Outside of local efforts in the big cities, I can’t remember the last time I heard about any sort of push from “the left” for any new gun control measures, let alone any that would affect the average gun owner. Democrats have almost entirely “backed off” on gun issues.
And yet we still get bullshit like this.
Did you ever see Miss Congeniality? Candice Bergen’s character has the line, “Of course he had a gun. This is Texas, everybody has a gun. My florist has a gun!”
The same is probably true in Florida. A lot of gun owners so doctors ask about gun ownership. Maybe in Maine or Oregon, they ask about chainsaws.
Sure but that isn’t what is being argued here.
Pediatricians are saying that they can’t advise parents about the risks of guns in the home unless they ask if there are guns in the home.
Total BS. Just advise all parents about the dangers of guns in the home. No need to ask the question.
“I can’t ask if you have a gun so I’ll just give you general information about guns. And I can’t ask if you smoke so I’ll just give you general advice about smoking. And I can’t ask if you have unprotected sex so I’ll just give you general advice about unprotected sex. And I can’t ask if you drink so I’ll just give you general advice about drinking. And I can’t ask if you ride a motorcycle so I’ll just give you general advice about motorcycles. And I can’t ask if you have a pool so I’ll just give you general advice about pools. And I can’t ask if you have a chainsaw so I’ll just give you general advice about chainsaws. And I can’t ask if you have tropical plants or animals in your household so I’ll just give you general advice about tropical plants and animals. Etc.”
Don’t you see that it might be a good idea to determine if a situation exists before giving information about it?
No, most of my patients don’t appear to be as clueless as you, even the newborns.
Well if you’ve taken a child through a pediatric practice they either do a TB test on everyone (not what the guidelines advise) or they follow guidelines and decide who to test with a screen like this one, which includes the question:“Does your child have regular (e.g., daily) contact with adults at high risk for TB (e.g., those who are HIV infected, homeless, incarcerated, and/or illicit drug users)?” Talk about invasion of privacy! Better make a law that I can’t ask it.
Well, I’ve already stated that my personal practice is to not spend too much energy on gun safety issues with my particular patient population. But then I am not practicing in rural Florida or even rural Illinois, or for that matter the inner city. My personal assessment is that I can discuss only so much and have it make an impact and that gun safety issues are not a big enough impact item to make my top social engineering priority list.
But for illustration, let’s handle a simple one I do with great consistency - bike helmets. And let’s use the 6th grade physical visit. A large number of kids, even those who used to wear their helmets, have stopped wearing them by then. They think they are too good of bike riders to need them, or are afraid of the dork factor. Those who are wearing them do not need me to spend much time with my schtick (and 11 year olds at least pause before lying and usually Mom is in the room - mostly I know.) If they are not they get a chance to answer the quiz as to why it is important. The answers: 1) Force = mass x velocity squared. They are 3X bigger now and travelling 3X as fast and will therefore hit the ground with not 3x more force but 27X more force. Because they ride better. 2) They are riding near cars now. Drivers do not see cyclists. They look, see no car or truck and turn. Which happened to me in a bright glow-green windbreaker but I hobbled my way home because I wear my helmet. 3) The dork factor. Yes a reason to wear the helmet. They have heard 2224 different school lecture about drugs alcohol and smoking by now but standing up to peer influences is a SKILL. You learn skills with practice. Wearing your helmet in the face of your friends not is a chance to practice that very important skill and if they can’t stand up to peer influences over a helmet they are going to be in big trouble within a few years. The schtick only takes a minute but it is at least sometime effective. Not always. But sometimes. And that one kid who started wearing his helmet and the next week had a major fall that cracked the helmet to bits (which would have been his brain if not for the helmet and is a true story) makes all the other “wasted effort” times worth it. Giving that schtick to someone who wears the helmet? Silly to do. They get my congratulations and my asking how many of their friends do and still get the kudos for how they are better prepared for actually being their own person during the next several years. Parents usually appreciate that their lectures are getting reinforced by an outside authority figure that the kid has often known for years and years. And that child may benefit from some other extra attention that day. Or really just wants to get out of there. One size fits all is inefficient. In a town that had a large number of child chainsaw injuries you can be sure I would be asking about chainsaw safety. I’d be negligent not to.
I kind of like that title: social engineer. Hell yeah. Although most of the time that really amounts to just making sure that parents have accurate information upon which to make their own decisions on behalf of their children. So I’ll also accept educator.
Oh I also accept salesman. What I am doing is selling healthy behaviors. And good sales means knowing your customer and adjust the sales pitch to who they are and where they are coming from.
Not if it is a serious enough health risk to warrant preventative steps.
I’ve never been asked about most of those, but of those that have popped up on a health survey, answering in the affirmative has never resulted in any sort of dialogue on the subject with my doctor.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken the stance that nothing short of elimination of firearms in households with children is acceptable. And suggest that your Pediatricians badger gun owners until they comply.
" In addition, until existing guns are no longer present in the environments of children, educational efforts should continually inform parents of the hazards of guns and safety measures."
At least now I understand the reason they ask the question. It is to identify who needs to be continually informed. At least until they lie and say no.
Can’t you see the absurdity in this?
Just a data point: according to the NIH, “Accidents are, by far, the leading cause of death among children and adolescents”, so assessing which types of accidents a child is most likely to experience and advising parents on limiting that exposure is very much a medical issue. A pediatrician who could 100% prevent accidents would be doing more good for his patient’s health than one that could 100% prevent disease.
Now, guns are only a small part of the broader category of “accidents”, but lots of little things are a small part. That’s why doctors ask questions: to assess which risks a particular child is most exposed to.
Not really. At least as of 2001, we had a 24.5% gun ownership rate. Texas was at 35.9%.
It appears that 50+% household gun ownership rates only appear in the plains states and the Old South.
The survey included a national average rate, but it’s not very accurate because the sample group wasn’t representative of the state populations (eg. 3,000 from Wyoming versus 4,500 from Florida, even though there are 18,000,000 people in Florida and barely half a million in Wyoming).
[QUOTE=magellan]
I just wanted to weigh in on the notion of what I perceive a doctor’s job to be. I really don’t see it as advising me on the safety of my home.
[/QUOTE]
Sure, but we’re not talking about your doctor. We’re talking about your (hypothetical?) kid’s. It would be weird for your proctologist to ask; it’s apparently not weird for a paediatrician.
Well, the specifics of it were that it happened during the post-2000 election fiasco. He sort of started talking about the situation offhandedly as he was working through his clip board and then got off onto a tirade about how Gore’s side were sore losers and then went into a spiel about why Bush was much better for the country. Since I’m a Republican myself it wasn’t a huge affront to my political views but I did find it a little weird from a doctor to a patient. Since the election had already happened he wasn’t necessarily trying to influence my vote, though.
He’s the same dermatologist who was really excited to tell me that some cream he prescribed for me was worth more per ounce than gold. Almost like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever heard of (this was back when gold was around $400/oz.)
Oh, I agree with that too, I noted that Democrats have backed off *mostly. *But those local efforts in the big cities impact a lot of people. Add up Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, and essentially the entire states of New Jersey and California and that’s almost 60 million Americans (I include the entirety of NJ/CA because they are essentially fascist gun states.) [Total aside I got 60 million by doing this in Wolfram Alpha…just thought that was pretty amazing.]
If only ifs and buts were candy and nuts… but they aren’t, so they can’t.
Actually, guns are a minuscule part the category accidents. For infants 2/3 of accidents are suffocation related with firearms not even rating their own category and get lumped under “other” at less than 6%. From age 1 on vehicle accidents lead all other categories by leaps and bounds going from 30% to more than 3/4 of all accident deaths by age 15-19. Firearms still get lumped into “other” and that category never climbs above 18%.
Warning PDF see chart on p.21 if interested.
Directing the effort toward vehicle accident prevention would seem to have more potential to be productive.
You don’t do your argument any favors by referring to states with strong gun control laws as “fascist”, you know.
[QUOTE=Hbns]
Directing the effort toward vehicle accident prevention would seem to have more potential to be productive.
[/QUOTE]
Are you suggesting that paediatricians should counsel parents to avoid keeping motor vehicles in or near the home?
Hadn’t considered it. But you can suggest it if you like.
I’ll pass, thanks. What did you mean by “directing the effort toward vehicle accident prevention”, then? Paediatricians already routinely counsel parents regarding child seats and other vehicle safety issues, according to the ones who have posted in this thread.
That’s retardedly sexist. Stop being on my side. (sight unseen, my wife is probably a better shot than you out to 75 meters).
If you’re wooshing me, tag a smiley on there next time.
They do. When you have a baby, they walk you out to the parking lot and physically make sure you have a car seat and installed it correctly. It comes up a hundred times more often and in more detail than gun safety because it is a larger risk. No one actually checks to see if you have locked up your guns safely: they just advise you. But if you think it’s ok for doctors to concern themselves with vehicle safely (which they do), I don’t see why you think it’s non-medical to concern themselves with gun safety.