boundary violation?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello,is it a boundary violation to acccept a cigarette, and smoke one, with a patient while escorting them in the building? thanks

Specializes in orthopaedics.
hello,is it a boundary violation to acccept a cigarette, and smoke one, with a patient while escorting them in the building? thanks

you're joking right?

you're joking right?

and here i was, scrolling to the end of the thread to write the exact same thing.

maybe it's a hypothetical for a paper or something.

Sorry, but, I think that's unprofessional

I AGREE!!!!!

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

When I left the Med/Surge hospital that I worked at, just four months ago.. nurses and techs were, indeed, taking patients down to the "butt hutt" to smoke, AND they would smoke with them. In fact, if a patient who was allowed to smoke wanted to go, and no one wanted to take them, they would often find a smoking employee who wouldn't mind taking the patient to go smoke.

I don't know if this hospital has gone completely smoke free, as in no smoking ANYWHERE on the campus, or not.

I know this is going to sound horrible, but what seems inappropriate to me is the accepting of a cigarette from a patient. Actually SMOKING with the patient, as in, you smoke your cigarette, the patient smokes theirs... while not exactly promoting healthy behavior... to me doesn't seem quite AS inappropriate as long as the smoking is indeed allowed in that area.

Then again, I worked in a small, fairly rural community hospital. *shrugs* Things were probably just a bit more laid back, all around. Not that I don't think smoking is nasty and unhealthy, and I get sick and tired of smelling it on coworkers after they come back from a break.

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Man, I'm gonna get flamed for my post. :redlight:

I guess it's just because around here, so *MANY* people smoke, it's very very accepted behavior; probably still too much so. Honestly, hardly anyone thinks twice about smoking around patients that are smoking, IF the patient is allowed to smoke, and IF they are in a designated area for smoking.

I'm gonna let my last post stand, and also reiterate that I do think that it is a nasty, horrible, evil habit. I encourage patients to try to quit. I don't know if patients that are addicted to nicotine and are pretty determined that they DON'T want to quit, are going to be swayed one way or the other because they see a hospital employee smoking.

Specializes in LTC.
Hello,is it a boundary violation to acccept a cigarette, and smoke one, with a patient while escorting them in the building? thanks

Our residents have assigned smoking times and our aides take them to an outside location to smoke. If the aide smokes, he/she can bring his/her own and smoke with the residents. Under no circumstances are the aides allowed to accept "gifts" from residents. We just had one of our aides terminated for accepting cigarettes from a resident.

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