Mike
Site Co-Founder
http://www.wsj.com/articles/doctor-to-patient-do-you-have-a-gun-1470957519
SNIP
"Doctor to Patient: Do You Have a Gun?
I cannot understand how my asking this question will help."
By
Jerald Winakur
Aug. 11, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
Of all the hundreds of questions I have asked patients over the years, there was one I never asked: Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
The Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians has recommended that this question be added to the litany of queries doctors ask our patients during routine visits. Do you smoke? Do you practice protected sex? Have you had your flu vaccination? Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
By
Jerald Winakur
Aug. 11, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
Of all the hundreds of questions I have asked patients over the years, there was one I never asked: Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
The Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians has recommended that this question be added to the litany of queries doctors ask our patients during routine visits. Do you smoke? Do you practice protected sex? Have you had your flu vaccination? Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
From a public-health standpoint, adding this question to the medical history must seem logical to policy gurus far removed from the trenches of primary care. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 60% of the 30,000 Americans who take their own lives every year do so with a firearm. Ninety die every day from shootings—60 are suicide, 30 are murders.
Yet as horrified as I am by these losses, I cannot understand how my asking this question will help. If a patient’s answer is “Yes,” then what I am to say?
Of course, the platitudes: Guns can be a danger around the home, especially one with children. Make sure you use gunlocks or a special safe. Everyone knows this; it’s akin to telling patients that smoking is hazardous to one’s health. And now that my patient has admitted that he owns a firearm, this fact is duly recorded into the—secure, of course!—electronic medical record.
If my patient suffers from mental illness or substance abuse but is not, in my estimation, a danger to himself or others, then what? Report the patient to someone, some agency? Who might that be? Will my patient be harmed more than helped? What will it do to my ongoing relationship with my patient?
. . .
I have had patients who died from firearm suicide, and their deaths will haunt me the rest of my life. I can ask: Are any firearms kept in and around your home?
But then what do I do if they answer: Yes?
------
Dr. Winakur is a clinical professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His book, “Human Voices Wake Us,” is forthcoming from Kent State University Press.
SNIP
"Doctor to Patient: Do You Have a Gun?
I cannot understand how my asking this question will help."
By
Jerald Winakur
Aug. 11, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
Of all the hundreds of questions I have asked patients over the years, there was one I never asked: Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
The Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians has recommended that this question be added to the litany of queries doctors ask our patients during routine visits. Do you smoke? Do you practice protected sex? Have you had your flu vaccination? Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
By
Jerald Winakur
Aug. 11, 2016 7:18 p.m. ET
Of all the hundreds of questions I have asked patients over the years, there was one I never asked: Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
The Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians has recommended that this question be added to the litany of queries doctors ask our patients during routine visits. Do you smoke? Do you practice protected sex? Have you had your flu vaccination? Are any firearms kept in or around your home?
From a public-health standpoint, adding this question to the medical history must seem logical to policy gurus far removed from the trenches of primary care. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 60% of the 30,000 Americans who take their own lives every year do so with a firearm. Ninety die every day from shootings—60 are suicide, 30 are murders.
Yet as horrified as I am by these losses, I cannot understand how my asking this question will help. If a patient’s answer is “Yes,” then what I am to say?
Of course, the platitudes: Guns can be a danger around the home, especially one with children. Make sure you use gunlocks or a special safe. Everyone knows this; it’s akin to telling patients that smoking is hazardous to one’s health. And now that my patient has admitted that he owns a firearm, this fact is duly recorded into the—secure, of course!—electronic medical record.
If my patient suffers from mental illness or substance abuse but is not, in my estimation, a danger to himself or others, then what? Report the patient to someone, some agency? Who might that be? Will my patient be harmed more than helped? What will it do to my ongoing relationship with my patient?
. . .
I have had patients who died from firearm suicide, and their deaths will haunt me the rest of my life. I can ask: Are any firearms kept in and around your home?
But then what do I do if they answer: Yes?
------
Dr. Winakur is a clinical professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His book, “Human Voices Wake Us,” is forthcoming from Kent State University Press.