An appeals court in Florida recently upheld a law making it illegal for doctors to ask
their patients about guns. The court’s argument for the law is quite simply that “the practice
of good medicine does not require interrogation about irrelevant, private matters.”…like
guns. So, they think doctors shouldn’t be asking you about your guns.
The argument against the law calls it “a violation of Doctors’ first amendment rights”
“that threatens their ability to counsel parents about how to protect children from
unintentional injury and death”. They think doctors should be talking about guns and gun
safety. It could keep their patients healthy and safe, which they argue is a doctor’s
purpose.
Both arguments have their value and both point to the same question. What should doctor patient
conversations be like? Where is the line from an ethical perspective?
The American Medical Association has an extensive code of ethics that addresses everything from
cloning to how to use research from unethical medical experiments. They are all for doctors
explaining all the ethical and unethical ways cloning can be used. They are also OK with
using research from unethical medical experiments so long as the origins of the research and
the ethics of how it was gotten are fully explained.
Those two examples have one thing in common and it’s the key to understanding this issue.
Doctors and the medical community are all about giving you as much information as they
can in the most honest way possible.
Which is why they ask you about sex and drugs and guns. They don’t necessarily need or
want to know that information about you personally, they just want you to know the information
that they know about that stuff. And asking whether or not you have a gun is a great way
to determine whether or not you need to know what they know about gun safety.
You don’t have to take that advice, or change anything about how you’re living, or even
have that conversation at all, which is the other key to understanding this issue.
If your doctor asks you about guns and you don’t think it’s any of their business,
just say so. They will respect that. One of their main ethical codes is patient autonomy.
That’s the patient’s right to choose what medical treatment they are willing to receive.
The patient also has the “right to courtesy, respect, dignity, responsiveness, and timely
attention to his or her needs.”
If you don’t want their recommendation they’ll respect that. They’ll be courteous about
it. And they’ll be timely with the shutting up. You can just say, “No thank you. I’d
rather not talk about that.”
So, why does the law exist in Florida? Well, the law in Florida isn’t really about doctors
or patients. It’s about Florida politics and the NRA, who backed the original bill.
But regardless, if you’re in Florida and you want to know what your doctor has to say
about gun safety, you can still just ask. They’re there to help.
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