challenging anti messages in my son's peds office

[antsi]

Below is the text of an email I sent to a community health organization that has been putting up "anti violence" posters in physicians' offices locally

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Ms. XXX,

I saw a flyer entitled "101 ways to stop violence" distributed by your XXXX organization in my son's doctor's office. I was directed to contact you as the person in your organization who has responsiblity for this poster.

One of the commands on the poster was "never touch a gun."

I am a competitive rifle marksman and a hunter. My father is a former national champion small bore rifleman.

The message your organization is spreading imputes that I am somehow promoting violence. I take offense to this. I am not and never have been a violent person.

I wonder how I should respond to my son when he asks why his father and grandfather are doing something - "touching guns" - which your organization tells him is promoting violence. Can you suggest a way for me to respond to this?

Thank you for considering my concerns.

antsi
Central IN

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Still pondering how to take this up with the Dr's office.

 

[Claude Clay]

.....never touch a gun.....in anger. slight re-wording can make a difference perhaps?

 

[Jimmie]

Was the poster directed at the kids or everyone? Even the NRA has "don't touch, call an adult" campaign that doesn't offend me.

 

[pax]

antsi ~

Ask the pediatrician the same question you asked the folks who produced the flyer, next time you're in. Take the flyer into the exam room with you, and when the doctor asks if you have any questions at the end of the visit, tell him (her?) exactly what you wrote in the letter: "I wonder how I should respond to my son when he asks why his father and grandfather are doing something - 'touching guns' - which this flyer we found in your office tells him is promoting violence. I don' think of myself as a violent person so this really took me by surprise. Can you suggest a way for me to respond to this?"

Then ... shut up. He'll probably defend the flyer. Keep looking concerned and don't get sucked into any kind of a political argument with him. Simply listen as he talks, and if necessary repeat again that this is a longstanding family activity and that you're worried about your son's reaction to this very negative political message about something that has been very positive for your family.

You won't convince the doctor to drop the flyer by arguing politics with him. But you probably will make progress if you can get him to see that handing out this kind of political rhetoric actually causes real problems for his patients.

pax

edited to add: d'oh! Poor reading skills -- your letter referred to both a "flyer" and a "poster." I keyed in on the flyer. If it's about a poster, same thing -- but don't tear it down to carry it into the office with you or nothing.

 

[antsi]

I didn't figure to actually change anyone's mind.

However, I think a lot of antis live in a self-defined fantasy world where only slavering maniacs own guns. Thus, one can run around demonizing guns and gun owners without fear of offending any reasonable person.

I just want to visibly and persistently - albeit politely - challenge that world view by being an apparently sane and reasonable person who happens to own guns.

Again, actually changing minds is a much more remote goal. In the near term, I'd like to just upset the smug complacency of their mental map of the world.

Jimmie....
It says "never touch a gun." So how can I teach my kid to shoot?
I should have mentioned, this office has adult medicine, OB-GYN, and peds. The flyer was posted in a common area so it wasn't clearly directed at just the peds patients.
I guess it could have said "never touch a gun without adult supervision," directed at the peds patients, and I would not have had any objection.
Also, this was on a list of "101 ways to stop violence" including a lot of other behaviors that are clearly immoral like "don't hit someone when you're angry." Personally I do not like gun ownership to be equated with "hitting someone when you're angry."

 

[SomeKid]

Hopeless.

The people who plague pediatrics suffer from the mental disease known as 'anti'.

I don't say that as hyperbole either. I am in my pediatric semester in Nursing school. So far, the most anti-gun area I have seen. Even worse than the mental health people.

 

[Waitone]

Take an example of the offending literature into the office with your physician. Explain why you are leaving to obtain the services of another physician. Then meet with your new physician and explain why he or she is getting your business. Consistent application of the above principal will help end the problem.

 

[denfoote]

There has to be a competing list somewhere that tell you which doctors are pro gun!!

If not, then it's time to start one!!
Oleg, are you listening??

 

[plexreticle]

Let your wallet do you talking.

 

[ROMAK IV]

It neer ceases to amaze me. We are seemngly taught that "tolerance" is part of the American culture, and so it should be. I don't care for honosexuality and don't approve of it, but I don't go out and look for homosexuals to condemn and trash. Same with religion, I don't seek to impose my religious beliefs upon others, and I don't even mention guns if I think the person will get upset about it, yet here we have it, the people that claim to be the most freedomloving and tolerant are out putting up posters in Doctor's offices like there is something wrong with owning guns. And In don't think it's an isolated event because the AMA has long opposed gun ownership as a "health issue" even with numerous studies showing that NOT to be true. Unfortuantely, doctors who support this kind of insulting and privacy invading behavior are part of insurance designated doctors and such itisn't easy or even possible to take your business elsewhere. At the very least, I would let the doctor know, if he actually supports the poster, know just how insulting and deceitful that poster is. Fortunately, I haven't had that problem. My wife's urologist was a big game hunter, with the head of one of the bigest rams you have ever seen mounted in his office. My own sometimes general pratictioner related to me his desire to own an Armalite AR-10.

 

[Robert Hairless]

The doctor might not know it but he is committing what is termed a "boundary violation." It's a serious violation of the doctor's professional ethics.

You take your son to that doctor for your son's benefit, not to give the doctor opportunities to advance his own interests outside the areas of the professional expertise for which you consult him. The relationship demands that the patient trust that the doctor will not abuse his position and violate that trust. Your doctor is doing both.

What you have described seems to be an increasingly common boundary violation by doctors and it needs to be stopped. You and everyone else here should read Dr. Timothy Wheeler's "Boundary Violations--Gun Politics in the Doctor's Office" as a start. A search for "Boundary Violations" through Google will show you even more.

You might want to use the term "boundary violation" when you speak to the doctor after you've done some reading about it. There's much more than tolerance at stake here. When you can't trust your doctor to behave professionally in one area how can you do it in others?

 

[MrPeter]

It's a pediatrician's office? That leads me to believe it's directed towards children, and would likely pertain to the situation, "If you find a gun...", not "If your dad gives you one to go hunting with."

Directions and explanations for children in Black and White are the simplest and best to get them to do or not do something. If a kid sees a gun, he can remember, "Don't touch!" but may be confused by, "only under supervision, with permission, under certain circumstances where you may be in danger of your life, and with the proper safety precautions taken, (4 rules) you may handle a gun. However if you happen upon one otherwise please leave it alone."

If it was a doctor's office, that would be different (I know a pediatrician is a doctor, I guess I mean adult doctor).

 

[TexasRifleman]

I'm not offended when I see Eddie say the same thing, I'm not convinced that alone is an anti message....

"STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult."

 

[Waitone]

It's a pediatrician's office? That leads me to believe it's directed towards children, and would likely pertain to the situation, "If you find a gun...", not "If your dad gives you one to go hunting with."

Fine. Play Eddie Eagle video on the tube in the waiting room. Politics has no place in the examination room.

 

[lance22]

You've touched [long pause] A GUN ???

[running around screaming in terror].

 

[Robert Hairless]

Perhaps I've been unclear. In boundary violations the issue isn't the content of a message but the intentional misuse of a professional relationship.

The doctor isn't wrong because the message is anti gun and he wouldn't be right if the message were pro gun or even if it had nothing at all to do with guns.

"If your Dad loved you he would buy your clothing from my mother-in-law's store" and "Good people vote for James Edwards" and "Boys who kiss girls are yucky because boys should kiss boys" and "The U.S. is bad because it sends soldiers into Iraq" are also boundary violations. It's also a boundary violation if the Doctor were to have a romantic relationship with a patient or to fondle the little girls or boys in his care. With all of those situations the doctor misuses his professional standing for his own purposes. He is crossing the legitimate boundaries of his profession and he is not entitled to do that.

Antsi is right on target when he asked "I wonder how I should respond to my son when he asks why his father and grandfather are doing something - 'touching guns' - which your organization tells him is promoting violence." Doctors who practice boundary violations do interfere in family relationships and, also, initiate distrust of their other advice.

In this instance the obvious answer to Antsi's question is to tell his son that the Doctor is wrong and is telling people the wrong thing. The unfortunate consequence of his need to do so is that the son is likely to think that if the Doctor is wrong that time he can be wrong other times too. In fact there's no telling what other times that Doctor has abused the patient/doctor relationship.

 

[StuckInMA]

Two entirely different messages IMO.

"STOP! Don't Touch. Leave the Area. Tell an Adult."

This message teaches a child that touching a gun without adult supervision is dangerous.

"never touch a gun."...."this was on a list of "101 ways to stop violence"

This message teaches a child that anyone touching a gun may lead to violence.

 

[deck52]

Also, this was on a list of "101 ways to stop violence" including a lot of other behaviors that are clearly immoral like "don't hit someone when you're angry."

Does this mean it is OK to hit someone when you're not angry?

 

[paramedic70002]

http://www.americanselfdefense.com/doctors.asp

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FIREARMS SAFETY COUNSELING REPRESENTATION:

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OR

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