Questions from my Doctor

[Will-Seattle]

As a physician, I have to say that those questions bother me too. I am certain that there are regional differences, but in my experience most doctors are pretty anti-gun.

Personally, I enjoy a good discussion about hunting or guns with my patients.

While living in San Diego, I had one WWII vet that was wheel chair bound. He told me that he carried (illegally) a pistol to protect himself. My only recommendation to him was that he should never tell any other medical provider what he had just told me.

Will

 

[mesinge2]

LIE

I agree

 

[bob.a]

. . . "lying is a sin and that consistently telling the truth is life skill that you have to practice with intention."

Actually, "bearing false witness", which is to say perjured testimony, is the sin referred to in the commandment. Life without the "little white lies" would be pretty raw, especially when people ask you embarassing questions the answers to which are none of their business.

 

[BADSBSNF81]

1. Just exactly how does this relate to your treatment of my medical condition today?

2. Exactly who is requirng you to ask these questions? Please provide me with a name and phone number.

3. I refuse to answer, now what happens?

 

[nitetrane98]

Quote:
In the Navy you didn't jack around with the corpmen or the dispersing clerks. They controlled your shot and pay records.

What does that have to do with the civilian world?

Think about it a few minutes, if you still don't get it, PM me.

 

[Officers'Wife]

My late uncle had a standard answer for such questions- 'That falls under the heading of my business.'

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I have been a doctor for a pretty long time, and I have a few points I would like to make.

First, I have never asked those questions, nor do I ever intend to. However, in my specialty, those questions would be even more irrelevant than they are to primary care doctors.

Second, the rational for these questions is in the name of safety. However, there are a whole variety of issues that are on the safety agenda for groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics, including things like swimming pools, despite what people here say. The AAP is a liberal group, there is no doubt of that. They certainly have an anti-gun agenda. But they do not limit their discussion to guns. To say that would be a misrepresentation. Here is a page from their safety website, and guns are not mentioned until about half way down:

http://www.aap.org/healthtopics/safety.cfm

They talk about car seats, water safety, bicycles, lawnmowers, shopping carts, poison, etc. So to say they only preach about gun safety is not correct. Individual practitioners may or may not cover all these issues however.


Third, the AMA and AAP are both very liberal organizations. I resigned my AMA membership many years ago when the president of AMA proclaimed guns to be a public health menace in a speech. They certainly have an agenda

Fourth, since the AMA and AAP are involved in establishing practice standards, asking these questions is therefore legitimized. Some here have claimed these questions are irrelevant or a boundary violation. This is not true. They are legitimate questions because the AMA and AAP say they are. If you sue your doctor for asking this, he will be able to get a team of experts from the AMA to testify that he was correct in asking the questions.

Finally, the best way to deal with these questions is to not answer them, and let the doctor know you will go elsewhere for care. Medical practices are very competetive, and they will quickly learn not to tick off potential patients by asking dumb questions. But they have to know why you are leaving the practice.

 

[chuckusaret]

I have had the opportunity to have been asked the same questions when filling out the new patient paperwork at a local doctor’s office. I inserted N/A on each of the questions and turned the form in, but to my dismay the receptionist stated that I needed to answer them with a yes or a no, which I refused to do. I mentioned the questionnaire to the doctor; he stated that the AMA required that they be part of the initial office visit questionnaire. This is just another invasion of a person privacy and should not be tolerated.

 

[ghoster]

just say: hoo boy, not with my record!

they will never ask a generic question again.

 

[foghornl]

do you know what a "Bounday Violation" is, Doc?

Those ??'s do not apply

 

[CoRoMo]

If the nurse/doc is poised over the laptop/clipboard, waiting for the answer to the question, and you give them the...

"That's none of your business, doc!"​

... won't they just put a check mark in the 'Yes' box and move along?

Seriously, is there a way to avoid giving them the answers without them thinking, "Okay, I think I know the answers to these questions now"? I mean a non-gun-owner isn't necessarily going to give them the stonewall like one of us, they'll just answer each question "correctly". Our method of avoidance would give away the answer to these questions, right?

Also, what are the chances you could get this information removed from the medical record once it has been applied? Lone_Gunman... can you answer this??

 

[DCR]

Thank you for the full clarification, Lone Gunman.

I'm lucky - my children's pediatrician is an outstanding doc and a longtime friend of their mother. I have a picture of her in my CAS garb - cowboy hat, bandoleer, belt w/ revolvers, holding the '94 rifle and grinning ear to ear.

I love Idaho!

 

[fatelk]

My wife brought my daughter home from a checkup a couple days ago, and said the doctor asked the usual questions about guns. She really likes the pediatrician, and apparently she asked in a non-offensive way, but it still bugs me. My wife's standard answer is "my husband's guns are locked in a safe".

The safety handout, on the other hand, is offensive. Quote "Handguns are especially dangerous. It is best to keep all guns out of the home." To the side is an image of a pistol with a slash through it.

To be fair, there are a lot of irresponsible people out there that really shouldn't have a gun. You hear horror stories about tragic accidents where some moron kept his loaded Glock under the couch cushion and his kid found it. I would not let my kids go to a friends house if I thought they were not responsible with guns. Perhaps lives could be saved by a pediatrician asking about gun safety.

Heck, the NRA advocates gun safety training and responsibility. My problem is that the AMA and AAP go to the extreme and say guns are bad, you shouldn't have them at all. In their perfect little world, there is no room for responsible, free people, just stupid people who need to be told what to do.

 

[aerod1]

My doctor is also the doctor my daughter's family uses including my grandchildren. He knows we all have guns in the house. He has small kids and he also has guns in his house. We deer hunt together and he is teaching his young boys to shoot. BTW, he refuses to join the AMA as does 80% of the docs today.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I mentioned the questionnaire to the doctor; he stated that the AMA required that they be part of the initial office visit questionnaire. This is just another invasion of a person privacy and should not be tolerated.

The AMA has no requirements of the kind. The doctor lied to you. The AMA can make suggestions, but no one is bound by them. Your doctor lied when he said the AMA requires this. The AMA is not a licensing board and exercises no control over individual physicians.

do you know what a "Bounday Violation" is, Doc?

Your doctor probably knows, but you obviously do not. A boundary violation occurs when a doctor asks something outside the scope of his medical practice. But you want to guess who makes the rules up as to what the scope of practice is? Academic and institutional physicians, who are by and large liberals who came up with the idea of asking gun related questions in the first place. So if you accuse your doctor of a boundary violation and sue him, he is going to get about a thousand doctors from academia and organized medicine to testify that it is in fact standard of care to ask such questions.

Also, what are the chances you could get this information removed from the medical record once it has been applied? Lone_Gunman... can you answer this??

If you tell your doctor at a later date that you got rid of your guns, he should update your record, just like he would if you quit smoking or were diagnosed with cancer. You will not be able to get him to change the record for political purposes of course.

 

[CoRoMo]

Thanks!!

Next visit in, we'll ask him to record the details of our recent boating accident.

 

[distra]

Interesting...I just took my 4yr old and 15 month old in for their check-ups and no questions like that were asked of me. Most of the docs I know shoot skeet and/or pistol at our club. The AMA could be pushing the docs to ask these questions for more ammunition for gun control/freedom removal for "your own good"

 

[ArmedBear]

Whatever happened to, "That's not something I'm here to discuss"?

Would you tell your mechanic?

 

[HarleyFixer]

When you go to the Doctor's office you are hiring him to perform a service. If he does ANYTHING that you do not like YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO FIRE HIM. Why is this so hard to understand. Tell him this has nothing to do with why you are there and you will take your business elsewhere.

 

[JohnnyJohnsoninWI]

Wow, What a response

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all your replies. I never expected such a response.

While my thoughts continue to evolve, I'm currently formulating a reply that goes like this.

"Doc, I've been safely handling firearms for 39 years and have been a firearms safety instructor for the past 8 years. I've also been researching this subject and have learned that the AAP and AMA are strongly anti-gun, anti-second amendmant, and that they have recommended your line of questioning. However, it is your discretion as a doctor whether you ask them or not.
I'm happy to discuss firearms safety with you, however, if you insist on recording that information on your computer, well then, my firearms have all been sold. I also don't understand why you would choose to create an adversarial relationship with your patients with such a line of questioning and data collection."

Thanks again,

John

 

[Hokkmike]

My doctor is in my employ. I, or my insurance company, pay him well for his services to me. Being a good employee I expect him to answer my questions about my health, ask questions relevant to discovery of my (potential) health problems, and beyond that do not expect to be solicited at his office.

 

[Habeed]

You might be interested to know that these questions are NOT determined by corporate entity. At a lecture in medical school yesterday it was mentioned that we need to ask that question. I'm not entirely sure what we do if the patient's parents say they keep a loaded handgun under a pillow with a round chambered. Haven't gotten to that lecture yet

However, the intention of the question is to inform the parents of behaviors that increase the chance of the child being killed or injured. In the same box on our "cheat sheet" are some further questions such as :

1. Who is living in the house? It seems that 2 parent households are low risk for a child, and a trailer with 10 people living in it is high risk.
2. Do the parents smoke tobacco products inside the house?

And so forth. For the most part, our duty is to scold the parents if they give the wrong answer. Of course, if the overall situation seems excessively bad and/or the child shows injuries that could have been caused by abuse, we are REQUIRED to report it to CPS. I'm not ignorant of what this means : as I understand it, CPS in many places is often....overzealous....in carrying out it's duties and has caused grievous harm to many a family.

 

[daorhgih]

Stating "NA" won't hack it, but THIS will:

" I REFUSE to answer on the grounds that such questions violate my Constitutional Rights." I.e., the 2d & the 5th.

 

[Sir Aardvark]

My daughter's pediatrician asked me this back when I was a Type 01 FFL - Dealer in Firearms.

I just handed him my business card and I asked, "Why, do you want to buy one?".

He didn't reply and just moved on to the next question on the list.

 

[ColeK]

Johnny, welcome to THR.
This isn't the first time this has been discussed. The first time I heard about it a year or so ago.
I asked my Doctor at the time, now this man has been my Doctor off and on for more than 40 years, why he didn't ask me how many guns I owned? He laughed and said he assumed all of his patients own at least 3 firearms and they aren't kept in a safe.
Last year my old Doctor retired. My new Doctor didn't ask these questions. I asked him why? And he asked me why I would ask such a question? I told him that I understood that the AMA and/or the CDC wanted to know this information. He said that it was none his business or the AMA's or the CDC's how many firearms I owned or how I stored them.
So, don't answer the those questions.