Doctor: Do you feel safe at home?
Me: Why? What did your wife say?
Doctor: Do you feel like people are out to get you?
Me: No more than usual.
Doctor: Are you a gun owner?
Me: No. My guns are not "owned". They are free guns.
TL/DR: it's highly unlikely that the doctor needs your business. Smart mouth him and he will dump you and fill your slot with another patient
I worked in the medical field as a Medical Assistant for about 3 years 20 years ago.
My experience working in Urgent Care and specialty clinics was most of them double booked every appointment slot.
You had to get the patients in and out as fast as you could. I worked in one Clinic where the Medical Assistant was expected to have the patient ready to see the doctor with in 3 minutes of calling them back for their appointment. That included height, weight, vitals and a brief synopsis of why the patient was here to see the doctor today.
Ideally the room was supposed to be turned every 15 minutes including prepping for the next patient and cleaning the room.
They're just wasn't time in that especially remembering that each appointment was double booked to ask any question that wasn't
exactly related to today's Chief complaint.
"Do you have firearms in your home ?" is more a question that would be on your pre-appointment paperwork that you filled out in the waiting room.
I don't think I've ever seen a doctor directly ask that question except in cases where the doctor was about to prescribe the patient a medication that has a known side effect of producing suicidal thoughts or actions. In that case I don't think it's an inappropriate question.So, I don't see the doctor asking the question.
Having said that every Medical Practice I ever worked in was a Sausage Factory. They wanted you in and out as fast as possible.
If the Doctor even decided to ask the question he's not going to argue with you over your answer. He ain't got no time for that.
He's going to ask you, you're going to answer and if you say anything other than yes or no or you get up on your Second Amendment soapbox he's going to mark "Patient refused to answer" and go on to the next question.
The doctor doesn't care what you think about the Second Amendment, the doctor really doesn't care if you own guns or not. If he asks you the question at all it's because the HMO told him to. He doesn't want to hear your opinion because he's already the smartest guy in the room and if you don't believe me ask him.
Last thing as mentioned above,every Specialty Clinic that I worked in,
stayed double booked 6 weeks out.
If you tell your doctor that you're going to find another Physician because he asked you that question he's going to wish you Godspeed and and his scheduler is going to have your slot booked before you drive out of the parking lot.
I very specifically remember one patient called for an appointment with the Orthopedist. I told her that we had no appointments available for 6 weeks but I could put her on the will call list and contact her if we got an opening.
She got extremely Huffy and told me that if the doctor could not get her in this week she would take her business elsewhere.
I responded as politely as I could "Thank you very much ma'am have a nice day." and hung up.
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