Smokers in Nursing School--How Are You Treated?

[SarahMaria]

I am a smoker (I know, I know), and I am in my third semester of nursing school. Often, especially at clinicals, my fellow smokers and I are looked upon as common criminals. Always, there is some sort of smoking ban on hospital property, therefore, we pariahs must go to a designated location which is usually far away, across the street, in a dangerous neighborhood. Is anyone else feeling like a leper for engaging in a legal activity?

[CuriousMe]

Well, at least you're not wishing me lung cancer and COPD lol. My future's looking great so thanks!

Not sure what you read....but non one wished that for you. You may want to give it another read. Forcasting a likely outcome (supported by a whole lot of evidence) and wishing it on someone are really different things.

But, I suppose it's close enough if you're just looking for an attack instead of reading what folks are writing.

Again, I wish you the best of luck....as your contiued posts suggest you really will need it.

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

I'm not sure I said "a lot" but actually, yeah, there are a lot. There are obese people in every profession. If you think nursing is exempt then you should be thankful you work where you do and don't have to pick up the slack for others who can't or won't do their job.

Yeah, you said "a lot." That's why I put it in quotes.

[metal_m0nk, BSN, RN]

I wish I had some kind of legislation that would protect my delicate sensibilities from the overwhelming amount of socially acceptable self-righteousness and caustic melodrama in this thread. But I realize that the responsibility to distance myself from the poisonous behaviors of others belongs to *me* and not any one else. And if for whatever reason, obtaining distance is not possible, I learn to cope...A valuable insight, for certain.

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

I wish I had some kind of legislation that would protect my delicate sensibilities from the overwhelming amount of socially acceptable self-righteousness and caustic melodrama in this thread. But I realize that the responsibility to distance myself from the poisonous behaviors of others belongs to *me* and not any one else. And if for whatever reason, obtaining distance is not possible, I learn to cope...A valuable insight, for certain.

Does your enlightenment include any recommendations for the patients to be able to distance themselves from the poisonous behaviors of others?

[justashooter]

thanks for the link, tricky. i loved the citations.

we all know the truth, but it doesn't fit some of our schemas very well.

i have lived in cultures in which smoking was considered mandatory for men, and in cultures in which smoking is considered taboo. the violent backlash that smokers have endured in the USA in the last 10 years needs to come to an end. a middle ground must be found. the 30% of American adults that smoke shouldn't be asked to travel a mile from their worksite to somke on lunch break. such policy is vindictive and unfounded.

as i posted earlier in this thread, today it's somkers, tomorrow it's fast food eaters, the next day it's red meat eaters, or people who watch Media, or people who like bad comedy, or people who want to be involved in politics (GASP!). let's all sit around and scream by the fire while each special interest group is roasted. in the beginning it won't seem so bad, but in the end when they are telling you that you can't speak about politics anymore, or teach your children your preferred religion, or take your family outside of a prescribed region without government authorization in quadruplicate, then it'a bad enuf.

when you can't picket for the right to vote, or complain about the government official who paid thugs to chop the hands off of farmers who stood in the way of his industrial develpment plans, or the governemnt official that had a 15 year old girl gang raped and thrown off the roof of a seven story building and declared a suicide, then i'll tell you whose fault it is that things got so bad. it's the fault of every man who stood by and watched the erosion of civil rights.

you think it can't happen? life is that way in certain totalitarian countries i have lived in. let's keep America free.

[nursel56]

You still aren't seeing the difference between laws passed to protect the populace from something harmful and government controlling our private behavior. Your dark view is nothing new. It's been predicted over and over again by factions who think as you do. It's a credit to our country that people who believe the things you do are far outnumbered by those who have faith in our collective wisdom even if it is delayed. I wonder if you could provide a projected timeline for all the calamitous events you are predicting?

[justashooter]

You still aren't seeing the difference between laws passed to protect the populace from something harmful and government controlling our private behavior. Your dark view is nothing new. It's been predicted over and over again by factions who think as you do. It's a credit to our country that people who believe the things you do are far outnumbered by those who have faith in our collective wisdom even if it is delayed. I wonder if you could provide a projected timeline for all the calamitous events you are predicting?

protect from harm? you didn't read the link tricky provided, did you? in short, it debunks the "second hand smoking" myth. credible peer reviewed studies have refuted the myth for years now, but the laws are in place, anyway. you really need to read ayn rand.

faction? collective wisdom? it's all about control, my friend. you may think that you have it, or can get it when you want it, but it is already beyond your grasp.

you wanna know how it is gonna go down, and when? i'll tell you. it will be done within 50 years, and the mechanism will surprise you. why do you think a large segment of our government is advocating for open borders, the legalisation of 20 million illegals already here, and increased legal immigration thru traditional routes? the answer? destruction of a national identity, and increased disorder, thereby enabling increased enforcement. creating expanded power by creating expanded chaos is old hat. it's been done before, and is being done in America right now.

if you wanted to understand this, you already would. i'm not going to explain it to you in more detail.

[nursel56]

Oh, my. The recipe for your worldview is some Ayn Rand, some Alex Jones, a side of Lyndon Larouche with a sprinkle of Dr. Joe and Tom M. to spice things up, huh? I'll bet your home library is impressive! I regret that someone sanitized the message where you listed the people you don't like the smell of. It's sort of like calling the killing of children collateral damage or saying someone was fatally wounded when they died. The transparency of the original should have stayed as it was or they should have deleted it entirely, but that's not my call to make.

The only constant in these theories is that when someone who believes them is actually pinned down to a specific time frame, they are wrong, and so it goes. It always puzzles me that so many of those who I guess are trying to save our country, albeit in a really twisted way, are so uniformly obnoxious when trying to convince others of the validity of their viewpoint. If you are way up there in the stratospheric percentiles of intelligence, why would you choose to engage in such obviously counterproductive behavior? To me that's just, well not very smart. An excellent character study on this point is provided by William Shatner in the 1962 movie, The Intruder. The Intruder (1962) - IMDb

As far as what Triquee's link may or may not have "proved", I have no interest in wasting my time playing duelling studies. The very fact that you said you might allow that maybe secondhand smoke in an enclosed space might be an irritant when several of us have said it is, is so self-centered and arrogant I wonder why I am communicating with you at all. And now I'm not. Buh-bye, dear. Isn't it fun to be "friends"?

[Eponine]

protect from harm? you didn't read the link tricky provided, did you? in short, it debunks the "second hand smoking" myth. credible peer reviewed studies have refuted the myth for years now, but the laws are in place, anyway. you really need to read ayn rand.

If a patient has trouble breathing due to second-hand smoke - whether it's because s/he has to walk through a cloud of smoke to get inside or because the nurse recently took a smoke break - the studies are irrelevant. Saying, "Hey, studies X Y and Z say that second hand smoke isn't as dangerous as people believe," is not going to suddenly make the patient tolerate smoke better.

Also, I haven't seen anyone denying smokers their right to smoke in this thread or anywhere else. It's not as though anyone is policing people in their homes. It's just communal space. Doors to businesses that everyone has to walk through are communal spaces. Buses, taxis, trains, restaurants, bars, etc. are all communal spaces. Hospitals are also communal space, although they are also a special case considering the amount of people with respiratory problems. Again, no one's denying people their right to smoke; we're simply asking them to be considerate when they do.

For the record, I've read Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. I am not sure what difference that is supposed to make though.

[ShantheRN, BSN, RN]

Wow....this thread is...um...interesting. A good read before bedtime lol

I would like to point out, the two offered threads (while insightful) didn't debunk any smoking "myths." If there was the teeniest foothold of validity to stand on, don't you think the tobacco companies would've been all over it faster than you can say carcinogen? They stand to gain a few bucks if there's any proof that smoking isn't the unhealthy habit it is. I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, but come on - seriously?

Just saying.

Someone mentioned smokers' rights (too tired to find out who, sorry.) My junior high government teacher explained civil rights like this: your rights stop where someone else's begin. This isn't that hard a concept to grasp.....people just refuse to see it because they see it as a personal attack.

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

thanks for the link, tricky. i loved the citations.

we all know the truth, but it doesn't fit some of our schemas very well.

i have lived in cultures in which smoking was considered mandatory for men, and in cultures in which smoking is considered taboo. the violent backlash that smokers have endured in the USA in the last 10 years needs to come to an end. a middle ground must be found. the 30% of American adults that smoke shouldn't be asked to travel a mile from their worksite to somke on lunch break. such policy is vindictive and unfounded.

as i posted earlier in this thread, today it's somkers, tomorrow it's fast food eaters, the next day it's red meat eaters, or people who watch Media, or people who like bad comedy, or people who want to be involved in politics (GASP!). let's all sit around and scream by the fire while each special interest group is roasted. in the beginning it won't seem so bad, but in the end when they are telling you that you can't speak about politics anymore, or teach your children your preferred religion, or take your family outside of a prescribed region without government authorization in quadruplicate, then it'a bad enuf.

when you can't picket for the right to vote, or complain about the government official who paid thugs to chop the hands off of farmers who stood in the way of his industrial develpment plans, or the governemnt official that had a 15 year old girl gang raped and thrown off the roof of a seven story building and declared a suicide, then i'll tell you whose fault it is that things got so bad. it's the fault of every man who stood by and watched the erosion of civil rights.

you think it can't happen? life is that way in certain totalitarian countries i have lived in. let's keep America free.

That's all well and good, but not really relevant to a smoking health care worker coming back in from smoking and taking care of patients. By all means, smoke wherever you please, when you're off the clock. Our jobs make us do a lot of things that we wouldn't otherwise do without a paycheck, e.g. get vaccinated a billion times, pee in cups, wear goofy pants, wipe up poopie, XYZ. Some facilities are adding "being treated like a pariah if you smoke" to that list.

Although I must concede that there are a few smoking nurses at my place of employment that I have never smelled smoke on. And they're not covering it with perfume either! It really does amaze me. Maybe it's the cigarette brand, who knows.

[justashooter]

If you are way up there in the stratospheric percentiles of intelligence, why would you choose to engage in such obviously counterproductive behavior? To me that's just, well not very smart. Isn't it fun to be "friends"?

thanks for the compliment. even intelligent people are provoked from time to time. we're not vulcan, you know.

anyway, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think.