Author Topic: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns  (Read 6200 times)

MillCreek

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #25 on: February 19, 2017, 11:16:09 PM »
I can tell that none of you actually work in healthcare.  If you think we have the time or inclination to pore through your medical records to see if anyone asked about gun ownership, you are dreaming.  We are more worried about seeing our 20-25 patients per day and getting good scores on the patient satisfaction surveys so we don't get dinged by the insurance companies and lose money.

Pediatrics and mental health are the two areas where this is routinely asked about, for the reasons I noted above.  And if you tell my provider to shove it for asking these sort of questions, my discharge letter to you firing you from the practice will arrive within the week.  I already have more patients than I can handle; good luck finding another provider, in some areas.
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MillCreek
Snohomish County, WA  USA


Quote from: Angel Eyes on August 09, 2018, 01:56:15 AM
You are one lousy risk manager.

makattak

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Re: Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2017, 11:28:17 PM »
I can tell that none of you actually work in healthcare.  If you think we have the time or inclination to pore through your medical records to see if anyone asked about gun ownership, you are dreaming.  We are more worried about seeing our 20-25 patients per day and getting good scores on the patient satisfaction surveys so we don't get dinged by the insurance companies and lose money.

Pediatrics and mental health are the two areas where this is routinely asked about, for the reasons I noted above.  And if you tell my provider to shove it for asking these sort of questions, my discharge letter to you firing you from the practice will arrive within the week.  I already have more patients than I can handle; good luck finding another provider, in some areas.
It's a good thing the government hasn't mandated that all medical records be stored electronically where such answers would be easily searchable.
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

dogmush

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #27 on: February 19, 2017, 11:50:15 PM »
Maybe I'm weird, but I am letting my Dr's prescribe me chemicals I don't fully understand, offer advice on healing that has life altering consequences, drug me into unconsciousness, and in one case literally cut me open and screw things to my bones.

At that level of trust whether I have a particular tool or not seems pretty trivial.

Regardless, it's not like there is now a law saying they HAVE to ask. 

MillCreek

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Re: Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #28 on: February 20, 2017, 12:44:16 AM »
It's a good thing the government hasn't mandated that all medical records be stored electronically where such answers would be easily searchable.
If only all medical records stored electronically had a common database allowing them to be easily searched.
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MillCreek
Snohomish County, WA  USA


Quote from: Angel Eyes on August 09, 2018, 01:56:15 AM
You are one lousy risk manager.

mtnbkr

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #29 on: February 20, 2017, 08:08:50 AM »
Years ago, I don't recall if it was in context of Thing 1 or Thing 2 (the child-in-question was a toddler at the time), but their doc asked about guns as part of a larger Q&A about environmental stuff.  Curious to see where it went, I answered truthfully that I owned guns.  Doc asked if I kept them locked up and not accessible by the children unless under direct adult supervision.  No lectures, no comments, just on to the next question and the subject never came up again.  We've been using that office as our family docs for 10 years now and my kids have been seen by the same doc the entire time.  I've discussed my hunting trips and such with my personal doc in that office (it's his practice). 

FWIW, I try to normalize gun ownership and do not hide it from people.  To me, it's no different than any other interest or hobby.  I highlight the non-martial aspects such as developing the skills necessary to be consistently accurate, placing shots as close together as possible at increasingly long ranges, and the appreciation of the history or engineering of various guns.  It's really no different than being a sports car enthusiast who appreciates vintage cars and takes them to the track.  When talking about hunting, I downplay the killing aspect and focus on being part of and observing nature, and outwitting animals more attuned to their environment than I'll ever be.  The more people see guns and gun owners as more like them and less like the raving "muh rights" OC types, the better off we'll be in the long run.  This is a normal and healthy pursuit.  It's like golf, but with more velocity and noise.

Chris

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #30 on: February 20, 2017, 08:23:39 AM »
Docs ask lots of questions.   When my PSA was elevated for a while, Doc asked questions about my sex life.  Questions that were uncomfortable, but helped him figure out I had an infected prostate.  I'm glad I didn't tell him off when he asked questions about my sex life.  Oh, and on the gun thing, my doc knows I have a gun.  We competed once at an informal IDPA match.
No, I'm not mtnbkr.  ;)

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Ben

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #31 on: February 20, 2017, 09:46:52 AM »
Docs ask lots of questions.   When my PSA was elevated for a while, Doc asked questions about my sex life.  Questions that were uncomfortable, but helped him figure out I had an infected prostate.  I'm glad I didn't tell him off when he asked questions about my sex life.  Oh, and on the gun thing, my doc knows I have a gun.  We competed once at an informal IDPA match.

I think a lot, regarding viewpoints on this, depends on where you live and the political environment there. I used to go to the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara. On top of the already ultra-liberal atmosphere in the region, the clinic itself is well known to lean very left. I know they are anti-gun because they make it publically known in editorials, etc. I would be much more worried about them asking about guns for non-medical reasons than the medical center where I currently go.

 At the former though, my doctor there never asked me anything about guns. In fact he rarely asked any personal questions. I've had a female doctor here for the last couple of years. As mentioned earlier, she's never brought up guns or anything else that I would consider non-medical. On the other questions, she asks them, but she's Filipino and it might be a cultural thing regarding males and females, but I crack up because she constantly and profusely apologizes to me before, during, and after the questioning.  :laugh:
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MechAg94

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #32 on: February 20, 2017, 12:30:17 PM »
I think I asked my doctor once if she would ask me if I was a gun owner because I had heard about that.  She just said something about "this is Texas" and went one with what she was doing. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

zxcvbob

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #33 on: February 20, 2017, 05:15:53 PM »
I think I asked my doctor once if she would ask me if I was a gun owner because I had heard about that.  She just said something about "this is Texas" and went one with what she was doing. 

something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Zol75upPA
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BlueStarLizzard

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #34 on: February 20, 2017, 08:53:51 PM »

FWIW, I try to normalize gun ownership and do not hide it from people.  To me, it's no different than any other interest or hobby.  I highlight the non-martial aspects such as developing the skills necessary to be consistently accurate, placing shots as close together as possible at increasingly long ranges, and the appreciation of the history or engineering of various guns.  It's really no different than being a sports car enthusiast who appreciates vintage cars and takes them to the track.  When talking about hunting, I downplay the killing aspect and focus on being part of and observing nature, and outwitting animals more attuned to their environment than I'll ever be.  The more people see guns and gun owners as more like them and less like the raving "muh rights" OC types, the better off we'll be in the long run.  This is a normal and healthy pursuit.  It's like golf, but with more velocity and noise.

Chris

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MillCreek

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #35 on: March 02, 2017, 09:40:58 PM »
_____________
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MillCreek
Snohomish County, WA  USA


Quote from: Angel Eyes on August 09, 2018, 01:56:15 AM
You are one lousy risk manager.

MechAg94

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #36 on: March 02, 2017, 10:23:44 PM »
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/SlowMedicine/63529

Interesting article. 
More excuses.  This time trying to use suicide as the reason to focus on guns instead of just general safety.  The link won't let me read it a second time without registering, but I didn't notice any mention of asking people how many knives they had around the house. 

It is all pointless reasoning to try to get professionals to bug people about guns.  As said above, if they want to address gun safety, or general home safety, or suicide, there are ways to do so without asking patients what they own.  Even if they own no guns, they will likely come in contact with them at some point.  Of course, when it comes down to how much time my doctor has to spend with me personally, they have little enough time to address actual medical issues much less go fishing on other subjects. 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

Hawkmoon

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Re: Your Florida Doctor Can Ask About Your Guns
« Reply #37 on: March 02, 2017, 11:23:20 PM »
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/SlowMedicine/63529

Interesting article.  

Interesting, but the political anti-gun bias shows through crystal clear. Here's where you start to see it:

Quote
Suicide is the leading cause of gun deaths, accounting for more than 20,000 deaths each year. While gun owners are no more likely than the general population to attempt suicide, they are much more likely to be successful. One analysis found that firearm-related suicide results in death 80% of the time compared to pill overdoses, which result in death only 2% of the time.

Despite this epidemic of suicides by firearm, a recent survey found that 4 in 10 physicians never asked their patients about guns in the home, perhaps in part because the issue has become something of a taboo to discuss in many settings.

The word "epidemic" is used again after this quoted section, at least once. Never mind that the "epidemic" is actually an epidemic of suicide attempts, they choose to apply the term ONLY to those who actually succeed in killing themselves with guns. Yet, in epidemiology, a flu "epidemic" is not defined by how many people die of the flu, but by how many people catch it.

So if there's a suicide "epidemic," it's an epidemic of people attempting suicide by whatever means, and the discussion should be about how to prevent people from attempting suicide rather than blocking their access to one method so they'll look for other (possibly less efficacious) methods. Like my daughter, who has tried unsuccessfully to kill herself with pills enough times that she has done permanent damage to her liver and her kidneys. When the shrinks and medical doctors finally got their act together and limited her access to the pills, she tried to jump out the window of a tenth story apartment.

Yes, the article is interesting -- in showing how deeply the anti-gun bias has become ingrained in the medical profession overall.

Quote from: MechAg94
As said above, if they want to address gun safety, or general home safety, or suicide, there are ways to do so without asking patients what they own.

I think I have commented before, although perhaps not on this forum, that doctors who have concerns about patients and gun safety have options. If a general practitioner thinks a patient has a dislocated elbow, he/she refers the patient to an orthopedist. If the doctor thinks a patient has cancer, he/she refers the patient to an oncologist. In other words, doctors routinely refer patients to people with specialized knowledge.

Who has specialized knowledge of firearms safety? NRA instructors. So why aren't doctors referring patients to the "specialists" with the professional expertise in firearms safety if they are concerned about firearms safety? Oh, right ... because the NRA is evil, that's why. So instead of referring to a qualified specialist, many doctors prefer to engage in what some of us consider to be a boundary violation.
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