Nurses Who Smoke

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I have one question....... WHY?

Specializes in Correctional Nursing, Geriatrics.
:angryfire it drives me crazy!!! if a nurse smokes she/he gets to take breaks whenever they "need a smoke", the rest of us don't get little breaks every other hour. i work on a cardiac unit, many times we have to initiate a smoking cessation with a patient that just had an mi or a stroke, how can nurses that do smoke, honestly tell patients that they can't anymore!!! errrrr

i go out with the smokers when they take their breaks...people say "why are you going out? you don't smoke." i say "no, but i second hand smoke!!" that way i get just as many breaks! :p

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Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.
I always drive with a seatbelt

I exercise 5 times a week and am not overweight

i eat 3-5 servings of fruit a day

I dont eat donuts or bagels

I dont drink alcohol

I dont drink coffee, but do drink tea on occasion

i drink a gallon of water a day

dont have a motorcycle, but if i did, i'd wear a helmet

I go to the doctor twice a year

I do talk on the cell while driving, but i use a hands free most of the time

I dont chew tobacco or smoke

No MSG, except for the occasional chinese food

and eat smal amounts of processed foods........

I hope i answered your questions. Now before someone begins to attack me like the poster did, i eat healthy and live mostly a healthy life, as ive seen what living a sedentary, mcdonalds diet has done. Its a personal preference that i dont push on anyone.

There are always those who are hostile, and apparently under stress, as this poster. I asked a simple question as to why smoke? You see the dangers it causes..... I didnt attack anyone, say it should be banned.........Just a simple question as to why? Just to satisfy a curiousity........So no reason to be hateful, as nobody is being hateful to you.

Im curious how many mechanics out there let there car go 10,000 miles without an oil change? How many landscapers let their lawns go unmowed for weeks..........In their profession, they see the damage not changing your oil can cause...........BUt we as nurses ignore it..........SO to reask my question---Why?

Bob me thinks you are bored that's why you started this thread lol

:rotfl:

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Specializes in Correctional Nursing, Geriatrics.
I remember taking offence to this in high school, but my chemistry teacher said that it has never been absolutely proven that smoking causes lung cancer. He said that there have been numerous cause and effect studies, but no quantitative/qualitative randomized and stratified experiments. He said that to have a 'beyond a doubt conclusive' study would involve following a group from birth, and ensuring that everyone in the experiment smoked their allotment of cigarettes a day (zero, in the case of the control group). He said that an experiment such as this would be unethical because where smoking is strongly implicated in lung cancer as a causative factor, it would be like seeing how much cyanide was safe for long term use, or something to that effect. Or compare it to Supersize Me (that movie where the actor ate nothing but McD's 3x/day for a month; his health was very adversely affected), and ensuring that someone (possibly against their will, and certainly without informed consent) put their health in such jeapordy.

Anyway, I agree that smoking is VERY STRONGLY linked to lung cancer.

I think that these things are all pretty much common sense issues...doesn't really take a rocket scientist or a chemistry teacher or a million dollar study to figure out that if you place poisonous, caustic materials into your lungs you are GOING TO GET SICK...you might miss the cancer bullet, but you WILL STILL have decreased lung capacity, be prone to bronchitis or pneumonia more than a nonsmoker, be at risk and PROBABLY get emphysema...I could go on...the point is if you choose to smoke DO IT...it's a free country...but why try to pretend that it is NOT a poison that you choose to use...YES it is LINKED TO CANCER...there is no DOUBT about that...statistics or not...it's just COMMON SENSE!!!!!

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Specializes in Correctional Nursing, Geriatrics.
Exactly- instead of reading her the riot act for eating so much of Sally's birthday cake, I will accept her for who she is, and all the wonderful qualities she posesses as a person, and should she decide the try and loose some weight I will be there when she is a little on edge because she is being forced to stomach rice cakes, just like I would hope she would be there for me when I was on the edge, chewing the end off of every pen in sight or eating 3/4's of Sallys cake because I was trying to quit smoking, LOL :) !!!!!!!

Couldn't have said it better! :) Hee hee hee lol :rotfl:

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I'd hate it if someone labeled a subject that was on my mind as "pointless". What's "pointless" to one might be a legitimate concern for another?

Perhaps they're just trying to understand why, therefore just asked? (Words echoing from nursing school: "There's no such thing as a stupid question.") You never know EXACTLY what it's like, even if you share the same type of habit, because people do it for different reason, and it affects people in different ways.

Whats the point of the thread? Some Nurses smoke. Period. Why? Cus they do. Some nurses are overweight. Why? Cus they are. Pointless? Whos going to read this and say. "OMIGOD...you're right..I'm quitting". Not someone whos tried a few times already.

Nurses who overeat. Nurses who get no sleep. Nurses who dont eat right?. Nurses are obese. Why? Thread is pointless to me because smoking is an addiction. Period. Who doesnt know that. Its been pointed out that theres been threads on this before. Got nowhere.

PS. Yeah. In the process of quitting. :) day 5

PPS: I think Tweety said it best about why this thread topic will go nowhere.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz

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I usually lurk and read on this site but this is an issue that I take very personally. Smoking is an addiction, a drug that when you use it affects the people around you. If I'm going to sit next to you and drink a whole bottle of vodka or do drugs I have not adversely affected your health. However when you smoke in the same restaurant as me, I am forced to inhale second hand smoke, it's not a choice. I am in a family of pack a day smokers and they get very defensive- it's the nature of smokers to act like it is their right to pollute the air that I breathe. However I choose not to smoke, and I was never happier when a no smoking ban was passed in our city. Now you cannot even stand outside the doors of public buildings and smoke. I am also in the same city as a company that gave employees 13 months and also the resources to quit or be fired..3 people lost their jobs.

If someone chooses to kill themselves with smoking, that's fine, but my right, my choice as a non smoker is to breathe clean air and not have someone make that decision for me. Perhaps smokers should think for a moment about the other people they affect when they smoke- most smokers I know only care about how it affects them.

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Specializes in Operating Room.
"OMIGOD...you're right..I'm quitting". Not someone whos tried a few times already.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

What no bell or whistle went off when you read this to toss all the cigarettes in the trash????

& congrats on quitting! Hopefully, you can do it!

:beercuphe :smokin:

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:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

What no bell or whistle went off when you read this to toss all the cigarettes in the trash????

& congrats on quitting! Hopefully, you can do it!

:beercuphe :smokin:

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Thank you for the kind words :)

As Z thoughtfully chews on her sleeve. (better than chips..not fattening)

Z

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Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Resource Pool, Dialysis.
I usually lurk and read on this site but this is an issue that I take very personally. Smoking is an addiction, a drug that when you use it affects the people around you. If I'm going to sit next to you and drink a whole bottle of vodka or do drugs I have not adversely affected your health. However when you smoke in the same restaurant as me, I am forced to inhale second hand smoke, it's not a choice. I am in a family of pack a day smokers and they get very defensive- it's the nature of smokers to act like it is their right to pollute the air that I breathe. However I choose not to smoke, and I was never happier when a no smoking ban was passed in our city. Now you cannot even stand outside the doors of public buildings and smoke. I am also in the same city as a company that gave employees 13 months and also the resources to quit or be fired..3 people lost their jobs.

If someone chooses to kill themselves with smoking, that's fine, but my right, my choice as a non smoker is to breathe clean air and not have someone make that decision for me. Perhaps smokers should think for a moment about the other people they affect when they smoke- most smokers I know only care about how it affects them.

#1 This isn't an anti-smoking thread - I'm sure there is one somewhere you can join

#2 I don't smoke in the same restaurant as you

#3 Actually, if you sat next to me and did drugs or drank a whole bottle of vodka you might adversely affect my health through whatever actions you took while you were high

You go Z!! Sleeves are OK, but stay away from fingernails...yuk

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#1 This isn't an anti-smoking thread - I'm sure there is one somewhere you can join

#2 I don't smoke in the same restaurant as you

#3 Actually, if you sat next to me and did drugs or drank a whole bottle of vodka you might adversely affect my health through whatever actions you took while you were high

I MIGHT adversely affect your health if I sat next to you and drank.. but you would adversely affect mine if you sat next to me and smoked... I wonder if most smokers ever realize how hostile they are... I would hope that wasn't your attitude all of the time- so much for respecting other people's opinion.. I am glad I am not so closed minded.

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Specializes in Happily semi-retired; excited for the whole whammy.

The drinker who adversely affects another's health faces criminal consequences. I am delighted to live in the land of some of the stricter anti-smoking laws on the planet, laws that the cigarette industry has spent billions of dollars trying to get repealed, with no success. The anti-smoking sentiment in this state, coupled with the money to be made in real estate, even translates to a reluctance on the part of many smokers to smoke in their own homes. It always amazes my Mom that no one ever smokes in our house, because where she lives, no one would dream of asking a smoking visitor to take it outside. I've never needed to ask; it is just done as a matter of course.

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Specializes in ICU, step down, dialysis.

You yourself are being pretty closed minded by assuming ALL smokers are inconsiderate as you have said.

Heck, even when I go to Vegas, I won't light up right away at a slot machine/VP machine...I'll sit and kind of watch people around me, and if I know the folks around me don't smoke, I won't either.

I don't think anybody here in this thread is saying anything either about whether or not one has a right to clean air...that's a gimme. We are discussing the issue of our own personal habits.

#1 This isn't an anti-smoking thread - I'm sure there is one somewhere you can join

#2 I don't smoke in the same restaurant as you

#3 Actually, if you sat next to me and did drugs or drank a whole bottle of vodka you might adversely affect my health through whatever actions you took while you were high

I MIGHT adversely affect your health if I sat next to you and drank.. but you would adversely affect mine if you sat next to me and smoked... I wonder if most smokers ever realize how hostile they are... I would hope that wasn't your attitude all of the time- so much for respecting other people's opinion.. I am glad I am not so closed minded.

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