Department of Health pursues 'docs vs. Glocks' rule

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is looking to update “disciplinary guidelines and penalties” pertaining to medical physicists on asking about firearms in the home and approving “emotional support animals” for patients, according to a notice in the Florida Administrative Register. Ladapo, as head of the Florida Department of Health, approved the proposed language, which was published Thursday. 

Medical physicists are just that: Physicists who work with health care providers. They “often consult with their physician colleagues to offer advice and resources to solve problems that occur when using radiation therapy or nuclear medicine,” for example, the Mayo Clinic explains. “A medical physicist might plan radiation treatments for cancer patients,” for example. 

The prohibition against asking patients about firearms – which Ladapo wants to extend to medical physicists – comes from a longstanding legislative and legal battle referred to in the press as “docs vs. Glocks.” But the statute in question was essentially struck down in 2017 after “the state did not appeal a federal-court ruling striking down major parts of the 2011 law,” the News Service reported. Or, as First Amendment lawyer Tom Julin put it, “This law is dead.”

Health Department spokesperson Nikki Whiting later explained that under the federal appeals court's opinion, the record-keeping, inquiry (i.e., asking about firearms in the home) and anti-harassment provisions of the law were struck down but other "provisions ... remain intact. Therefore, it is still possible for a medical physicist (or other health care practitioner) to violate" it. 

Other sections of the proposed rule language would require medical physicists to get parental consent before treatment under the state’s Parent’s Bill of Rights and would penalize them for “supporting a person’s need for an emotional support animal … without personal knowledge of the person’s disability or disability-related need.”

This post was updated Monday, May 1. 

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