I appreciate the concern about doctor-patient confidentiality, and especially psychiatrist-patient confidentiality. But the law on this, as I understand is, is complex; doctors, for instance, must often report gunshot wounds and similar wounds (am I right about that?), psychiatrists must warn the targets of specific threats made by their patients against others, doctors must report certain communicable diseases, and so on. Moreover, my sense is that doctors and psychiatrists have considerable authority to breach confidentiality in some situations even when they're not required to do so. Do we have a sense of how effective or counterproductive those requirements or permissions have been?
Again, the bottom line may very well be that these requirements are a bad idea, or that even if they're a good idea any new requirements that doctors or psychiatrists report any dangerous tendencies on their patients' part to the firearms regulators are a bad idea. I just don't think that one can categorically assume that confidentiality should be absolute, and that all departures from it will be counterproductive. Eugene From: firearmsregprof-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:firearmsregprof-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Roland Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 6:09 PM To: firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Re: Doctors asking patients about guns There is another issue being neglected. A patient needs to be able to trust his physician. If he is concerned about the physician reporting on him to the authorities, he won't seek treatment or cooperate in a way needed for effective treatment. There is a reason for doctor-patient confidentiality. If the government requires physicians to report they will get fewer reports rather than more, and more persons who need treatment, including dangerous persons, won't get it. Classic unintended consequences. -- Jon ---------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society http://constitution.org 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 jon.rol...@constitution.org<mailto:jon.rol...@constitution.org> ----------------------------------------------------------
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