Pediatrician questions

[MCG DAWG]

Th road to hell is paved with good intentions. You are right, physicians are just like other professions and you would not appreciate those kind of questions from your plumber. The OP's kid was in for a sports physical. The customer is asking the provider to decide whether his child is healthy enough to play a sport. Just do your job. Is is too hard to just do what the customer asks?

How many times are the firearms questions answered "Yeah I have guns. I keep them loaded in the kid's playroom right next to the cocaine."?

The current recommendations from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Sports Medicine is that all pre participation sports physicals be done in a "medical home" as a part of a full yearly, age appropriate physical exam. No longer should they be done as a "cattle call" mass screening at school or at an acute care clinic. At that yearly physical we can go over a very wide variety of topics pertinent to your childs health and well being including filling out a sports physical form. Part of any of those screenings is numerous safety topics one of which is gun safety.

I remain amazed how many of you get your panties in a wad over your child's doctor recommending gun safety when in fact we should ALL be behind any and all safety measures as it pertains to the safe use and storage of our firearms. I'm really blown away it would upset anyone that much to be told, "don't leave a loaded .45 laying around" any more than being told "buckle up for safety" would send you on a rampage.

 

[MCG DAWG]

OK, see if this makes any sense to you.

I'm a Christian. I truly believe it's in your long term best interest for you to be a Christian too.

Would you not consider it a bit intrusive if I come in your office and demand to know your religious beliefs?

I find it astonishing that supposedly highly educated individuals cannot grasp the simple concept of "none of your damn business"!

There must be something to the God complex that others have referenced.

Seriously docs, do what I pay you to do and keep your nosey-ass questions to yourself. If you're bored, consider a part time job.

Why is that hard to understand? Stick to your job as a human body mechanic and stay out of my stuff!

If you are a real Christian shouldn't you be witnessing to your doctor, your mechanic, and everyone else?

 

[MCG DAWG]

Perhaps we should be asking doctors why they pass out psychotropic meds like candy. Perhaps we should be asking doctors about the kickbacks they receive from big pharma for prescribing those drugs. Perhaps we should be asking doctors if they feel responsible for incidents like Aurora or Sandy Hook or the thousands of other less publicized shooting incidents committed by mentally unstable individuals pumped full of psychosis-inducing prescription drugs..

Doctors get no kickbacks from "big pharma". They can't even give us a freaking ink pen or a pad of sticky notes anymore.

I don't feel that the meds themselves are responsible for these instances. The kids were already messed up in the head with numerous psychiatric issues and were going to have some severe problems functioning in normal society with or without the meds. Whether the meds made them worse is definitely up for debate.

In my admittedly small experience with these issues I can give you plenty of examples, including one in my immediate family, where psychotropic meds are the only reason the person is able to live, work, and raise a family without being in a mental institution on a weekly or monthly basis. In many cases these meds are a God send and help folks out tremendously.

In other cases maybe they aren't so good. My main point is that I believe the underlying psychosis, personality disorder, etc is the main problem with the recent shooters we've seen and not the medications used to try and fix the underlying problem. Until you've spent some time around these type folks you have no idea just how whacked out they are, how irrationaly they are, and how just completely messed up in the head they are.

 

[graybeard]

The current recommendations from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Sports Medicine is that all pre participation sports physicals be done in a "medical home" as a part of a full yearly, age appropriate physical exam. No longer should they be done as a "cattle call" mass screening at school or at an acute care clinic. At that yearly physical we can go over a very wide variety of topics pertinent to your childs health and well being including filling out a sports physical form. Part of any of those screenings is numerous safety topics one of which is gun safety.

I remain amazed how many of you get your panties in a wad over your child's doctor recommending gun safety when in fact we should ALL be behind any and all safety measures as it pertains to the safe use and storage of our firearms. I'm really blown away it would upset anyone that much to be told, "don't leave a loaded .45 laying around" any more than being told "buckle up for safety" would send you on a rampage.

Let me help you with it then. It's not hard to grasp if you try.

1. It makes the assumption that we need to be told that. Outrageously condescending.

2. It has nothing to do at all with preventative medicine, zip. Your official title is Doctor, not world safety director.

3. It's just flat out absolutely none of your business.

I used an example earlier of power tools, but there are a jillion dangerous thing around an average household. Explain to me why you don't go down a checklist of all of those.

 

[jcountry]

As soon as you post up you medical training credentials, your trauma life support credentials, etc I'll post up my "firearm training credentials". You're taking quite a leap in telling me how to practice medicine. I'd wager I've had much more experience with firearms and firearm safety than you've had with medical training, but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure extra training is needed to properly advise someone to keep loaded guns where children can't access them. I'm not a Federal Transportation Board Safety Inspector but I advise people all the time to wear their seatbelts and to use child seats. Is that bad advice? Does it piss you off if I suggest it to you? Do you tell the doctor "it's none of your damn business!!" when he or she asks about your child's use of appropriate seating in a car?

As a physician I'm legally and ethically bound to cover a wide variety of preventative health topics at yearly physicals for people of all ages. Mentioning gun safety is simply part of that. I'm not recording if you have guns, not putting you in a database, and I'm not reporting you to the government. Most likely if I know you enjoy guns and shooting we'll spend a good bit of time talking about them, discuss the best local shops, and I'll pass along any good ammo buys I've come across. I have those conversations several times a week.

The beauty of a free market economy is if your child comes to my office and you are offended or upset by me asking questions and offering advice to help your child live a safer/healthier life then you are free to go to another physician. That's your choice and one you can freely make.

O.K.
-Now you are just being silly!

The man wasn't trying to tell you how to "practice medicine." He simply made the totally valid point that qualification as a M.D. does not qualify you in any way as an authority on firearms safety.

You may be a gun enthusiast, and that is great. But I would wager a large amount of money that the vast majority of physicians have no idea about how to safely store guns, and should not be considered an authority on the subject.

Guns are irrelevant to preventive medicine. As irrelevant as slipping on ice and falling down the steps, or getting hit with a baseball, or running in front of a bus. or maybe slipping in the shower. Accidents happen. Accidents have nothing to do with preventive medicine. I am not a physician, but I have a good B.S. detector. And gun storage advice as "preventative health" is just absurd. You could spend 4 hours with each family telling them to not stick their fingers in light sockets or eat rat poison too. Calling this a preventative medical issue is just silly.

 

[bc]

It is called “conditioning” folks. First, the government gets you used to doctors asking non-medical related topics under the guise it will not be reported. Then, a generation later after everyone is comfortable with the idea they expand it into the medical records under the guise it is for the good of public safety. At that point when the good doctor asks you if you drink coffee, he checks yes or no in the box; the same with smoking, alcohol, yes or no. Now comes the part where you have been indoctrinated to accept gun ownership questions in the same context, “do you own guns”? If you answer “yes” to both alcohol and guns, sirens begin to blow, the facility goes on lockdown, drones appear overhead, and ATF is dispatched to the location.
OK, maybe I am being a bit facetious, but the reality is this; I find it difficult to believe that any group (anti-gunners) who fights for the right to shove a steel rod through the head of a third-trimester fetus for convenience sake is truly concerned for our children’s safety. With that said, under the current political climate, it is not an illogical jump to connect the dots that the requiring of doctors to now ask gun related questions is nothing more than another backdoor attempt to restrict gun ownership. Anyone who supports the nanny state agenda being forced upon us under the guise it is for our own good is part of the problem, and definitely not part of the solution. Allowing liberals to use our children as pawns in their quest to control us is appalling to say the least.

 

[zesty]

Guns are irrelevant to preventive medicine. As irrelevant as slipping on ice and falling down the steps, or getting hit with a baseball, or running in front of a bus. or maybe slipping in the shower. Accidents happen. Accidents have nothing to do with preventive medicine. I am not a physician, but I have a good B.S. detector. And gun storage advice as "preventative health" is just absurd. You could spend 4 hours with each family telling them to not stick their fingers in light sockets or eat rat poison too. Calling this a preventative medical issue is just silly.

That's a pretty good point
When you put it like that, it doesn't make sense. I've never heard of a doctor telling people to make sure that dangerous chemicals and prescriptions are locked up. I could walk through my house and probably find a couple dozen dangers more common than loaded 45's on the table.

At the same time, I am pretty disappointed with the level of gun safety the average person has. I do wish there was some way to educate the public on the basic principles. I'm against mandated training, unless it was universal, like being part of a high school class.

 

[drewga11]

A doctor's two year old son died up here 3 mos ago when he went to his grandfathers, found a loaded 1911 on a table in the living room and shot himself with it.

So, how exactly did a 2 yr old manage to point a 1911 at himself, engage the grip safety, and pull the trigger at the same time...? My 4 yr old nephew can barely hold my unloaded 1911 up, much less accomplish all that at once with a loaded one.

 

[jsmith15]

took my 16 year old today to the pediatric doctor and we were not asked any questions.

 

[GeauxLSU]

What a bizarre thread. "It's for the chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllldddddrrrrreeeeeeeennnnnnn!" Give me a break, please!
Do doctors ask if your kids know how to swim or if you have a swimming pool for that matter? If anyone, doctors included, are buying into this "it's for your own good" nonsense, the battle really is lost already. Just pathetic. It's amazing how willing everyone is to submit to... well... pretty much anything.
I guess this is why my wife takes my son to the ped....