I'm thinking that you must not have understood the point I made about
professional boundaries and ethical restrictions on them.
To start your comment '“Boundary violation” assumes the conclusion that it’s
proper for the government to set . . .' is completely off the mark. No one is
talking about the law or government. We're talking about ethics and rules of
conduct established for professional conduct. Your point 'there is no
requirement of a license before offering people advice about guns' is true, but
I may or may not buy that advice and would approach those I judge to be
knowledgeable about guns if I choose to pay. Doctors I pay for their medical
expertise and they are trained and licensed to treat medical conditions. The
protection we have against medical malpractice starts with the doctor's
appreciation of his limits. So, your family doctor may refer you to a
specialist for treatment just because he realizes an illness needs someone with
better knowledge than he has. A doctor advising outside of his training to a
patient seeking treatment is negligent
and, if the advice is outside of medicine, the doctor is practicing
unprofessionally.
The Hippocratic Oath contains a requirement of Primum non nocere as one more
significant rule of medical ethics. The treatment offered by a doctor that is
outside of his expertise violates this oath and that is not obviated by the
fact that everyone is willing to offer an opinion on this subject. A doctor is
not less limited in the exercise of speech by his professional standing, but
more so. And the limits don't stem from government, but from ethical
constraints of his profession.
I would never be so churlish to tell a doctor to mind his own business if he
were to ask me about guns, but I would ask questions about his training and
certification on the subject, I would ask him how guns relate to the treatment
my visit is for, and I would ask how his advice will be tailored to my
circumstances. Finally, I would remind him that unless he were more
knowledgeable than I was, his advice might cause me harm. Then, I would see
what he had to say.
Phil
________________________________
From: "Volokh, Eugene" <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 12:47 AM
Subject: RE: Doctors asking patients about guns
“Boundary violation” assumes the conclusion that it’s proper
for the government to set “boundaries” on this particular kind of speech. I
don’t think that’s right.
To be sure, professional licensing laws do limit the ability to offer
particular kinds of advice, whether legal or medical, not on a “boundary
violation” theory but simply on the theory that – to prevent serious legal or
medical difficulties caused by bad advice – some advice should be left to
professionals. But that is an exception to the general rule of free speech,
and not the rule. And fortunately, for perfectly good reasons, there is no
requirement of a license before offering people advice about guns; you don’t
need to be a professional gun advisor to tell people what kinds of guns they
should or shouldn’t buy, and how they should or shouldn’t store them. While
neither a doctor nor a gun store owner nor a baseball player may give legal
advice unless he’s also a lawyer, everyone is free to give everyone advice
about guns. So I see no sufficient reason why a doctor (or an accountant or a
lawyer) can’t give such advice. And
in the absence of such a sufficiently strong reason, a restriction on speech
that offers such advice – or asks about gun possession – seems to me to violate
the First Amendment, which has no “boundary violation” exception.
Eugene
On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 8:34 PM, Phil Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
It seems you disagree with the professional boundaries set for medical
professionals. Let me try to explain. Suppose an accountant started advising
his clients on legal matters. In addition to a boundary violation the legal
profession might view the matter darkly.
You might understand that many professions have ethical codes that are intended
to guide professional advice and set boundaries that are not ill-defined as
much as broad. If you read my reference, you might see the boundaries for
doctors are clear enough. As a lawyer, you clearly will understand that it is
better to avoid a lawsuit for malpractice in the first place than try to defend
one for professional misconduct.
If I go to the doctor with the flu, whether I own guns or how they are stored
isn't relevant to my treatment (nor is whether I use seat belts). But the
doctor isn't "barred" from asking about my guns (or seat belt use) by a
professional boundary. What he shouldn't be doing is advising outside of his
professional expertise which is medicine (and offering advice where he lacks
training).
Phil
________________________________
From:"Volokh, Eugene" <[email protected]>
To: firearmsregprof <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 7:22 PM
Subject: RE: Doctors asking patients about guns
I’m skeptical of talk of “boundary violation[s],” which is
rather ill-defined term. It seems to me that if doctors want to ask patients
about things that they think are relevant to the patient’s health, they should
be entirely free to do so. To be sure, if they give the patient advice that is
unreasonable and harmful to the patient, they could be liable for malpractice
and for professional discipline. But I see no basis why doctors, lawyers,
accountants, or anyone else should be barred from asking their patients
questions.
Eugene
From:[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Phil Lee
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 4:13 PM
To: firearmsregprof
Subject: Doctors asking patients about guns
President Obama suggested the other day as part of his "gun safety" initiative
that it was appropriate for physicians to ask about their patients' guns.
Doctors who advise outside of their area of expertise have committed a
professional boundary violation.
The link:
www.ethics.va.gov/docs/necrpts/NEC_Report_20030701_Ethical_Boundaries_Pt-Clinician_Relationship.pdf
, "Ethical Boundaries in the Patient-Clinician Relationship," National Center
for Ethics in Health Care, July 2003,
defines "for physicians: Professionalism is the basis of medicine’s contract
with society. It demands placing the interests of patients above those of the
physician, setting and maintaining standards of competence and integrity, and
providing expert advice to society on matters of health."
So, if a physician asks about guns in the home of a patient, it may be argued
that question has little to do with the patient's health unless he observes a
condition such as mental disturbance that justifies such a question for a
particular patient. Even if there were a circumstance with a patient justifying
the question, doctors advising on guns may be questioned about their training
("standards of competence") to do so. It is rare that a physician has been
medically certified to advise about gun safety and rarer still that a physician
studies the perils a patient may face (i.e. crime in his neighborhood). Unless
a physician undertakes a study leading to his certification and unless he
studied the patients unique circumstances, in advising he would not have
limited himself as a professional should do. According to the linked document
"A boundary violation occurs when a health care professional’s behavior goes
beyond appropriate professional limits."
Phil
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read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others._______________________________________________
To post, send message to [email protected]
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.
Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can
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