Ever been asked about gun ownership by a doctor? Wonder what you should do if this does happen to you? Listen to Dr. Robert Young:
“There are two things doctors hate,” Dr. Robert Young with Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership told me. “Non-professionals telling us how to do our jobs, and being turned into informants on our own patients.”
DRGO describes itself as “a nationwide network of physicians, allied health professionals, scientists and others who support the safe and lawful use of firearms.” They’ve been fighting efforts to get doctors into the gun-control business for years. Young says that while many medical organizations and government agencies encourage doctors to ask intrusive questions about gun ownership, he doesn’t know of any so radical that they mandate it.
Young has a simple message for patients who get gun questions from their doctors, whether it’s mandated or not: Don’t answer.
“It violates the most basic relationship between doctor and patient,” he said. DRGO calls these questions “boundary violations” and urges patients to formally complain if their doctors persist in asking.
– Michael Graham for the Boston Herald, Doctors Have No Business Asking About Gun Ownership