I've already written my recommendations for action in prior notes, at least in
the form I would take if a physician asked me about my guns in a professional
context. These actions are:
1. ask about his medical training and certification on the subject,
2. ask him how guns relate to the treatment my visit is for and how his advice
on guns will be tailored to my medical circumstances or to my safety,
3. ask how his advice is governed by our professional relationship for medical
care (i.e subject to a code of conduct),
4. I would remind him that unless he were more knowledgeable than I was on
guns, his advice might cause me harm,
5. Then I would engage in any discussion he wanted provided he were willing to
provide his recommendations in writing.
If he were so foolish to proceed, I would report his actions on gun lists. I
would not bring a case to a board for code enforcement because I believe public
disclosure would have a better effect and so long as the harm were minor (the
doctor behaves as a nosy busybody),
I would not act further -- but if he revealed my information to
authorities, I would report a code violation and take legal action.
BTW from the annotations in "American Psychiatric Association The Principles of
Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry," 2009
http://psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Practice/Ethics%20Documents/Ethics-Principles-2009.pdf
"Section 2 A physician shall uphold the standards of professionalism, be honest
in all professional interactions and strive to report physicians deficient in
character or competence, or engaging in fraud or deception to appropriate
entities.
2. The psychiatrist should diligently guard against exploiting information
furnished by the patient and should not use the unique position of power
afforded him/her by the psychotherapeutic situation to influence the patient in
any way not directly relevant to the treatment goals.
3. A psychiatrist who regularly practices outside his or her area of
professional competence should be considered unethical. Determination of
professional competence should be made by peer review boards or other
appropriate bodies."
These subsections annotated for the practice of psychiatry strongly limit
advice that can be given and use of information from patients by doctors.
Confidentiality can be breached ethically only as required by law; an executive
order by a governor or president can't alter the laws pertaining.
Phil
________________________________
From: "Volokh, Eugene" <[email protected]>
To: Firearmsregprof <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: doctor "boundaries"
Before we go further, could I ask Phil to clarify matters – is he arguing in
favor of disciplinary proceedings against doctors who ask patients about guns
(proceedings that would be carried on through governmental licensing boards),
or simply arguing in favor of actions by purely private organizations?
His praise of applying Gentile (which is a substantively quite limited
decision, for reasons I’ll be happy to get into once I get Phil’s position
clarified) seems to suggest that he would indeed call for coercive action by
governmental organizations, such as medical licensing boards. An earlier post,
though, suggested the contrary. Just so we don’t talk past each other, could I
have a clear understanding of what’s proposed?
Eugene
From:Phil Lee [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 9:26 AM
To: Volokh, Eugene; Firearmsregprof
Subject: Re: doctor "boundaries"
And yet this appeal case Eugene cites rejected the Constitutional right ("We
also reject appellant's constitutional challenges as lacking merit under either
the federal or Nevada constitutions.") that Eugene has advanced.
Ethical rules govern ethical men not from fear of penalty, but a man's sense of
honor and wish to do right. Of course professional societies may have
extralegal procedures to admonish misbehaving members or to eject them. And if
such a member appeals to the courts, that part of government may be engaged.
But Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada gives no support that a lawyer may violate
ethical constraints under the guise of "free speech" protection.
Doctors who go outside of medicine might be vulnerable to a malpractice suit by
the patient in addition to the action by a professional society so patients who
receive advice on guns should make sure to get this advice in writing and on
the record.
Phil
________________________________
From:"Volokh, Eugene" <[email protected]>
To: Firearmsregprof <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: doctor "boundaries"
I am at a loss to grasp the last sentence, but let me turn to
the substance. If the proposal is simply “ethical restrictions” in the sense
of “good people should condemn people who do this-and-such,” then I have little
to say about it. But if the proposal is “ethical restrictions” in the sense of
rules of professional conduct that could lead to the loss of a license, to
fines, and so on – as was the case with the Florida law, and as at least the
C.D. Tavares posts on this thread suggest – then the First Amendment most
certainly does apply to such restrictions. It is, after all, governmental
bodies that would enforce these rules (just as they enforce “ethical
restrictions on speech” imposed by lawyers, see, e.g., Gentile v. State Bar of
Nevada).
Eugene
From:[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Phil Lee
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 9:32 PM
To: Firearmsregprof
Subject: Re: doctor "boundaries"
This discussion has nearly run its course.
First Amendment rights apply only regarding action by government and not to
ethical restrictions on doctors (since lawyers are also bound by ethical
restrictions on speech, I wonder why Eugene doesn't grasp the point); I haven't
proposed government limits on speech and have made that so abundantly clear
that I must declaim any responsibility for Eugene's missing the point.
Eugene clearly feel the need to transform the issues into something different
from the ones I raise; the child he is defending is so ugly and the defense so
vigorous that I suspect he might have been there when it was conceived and
feels a parent's responsibility.
Phil
_______________________________________________
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
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
read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
messages to others.
