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?

[nursel56]

I have to say it's funny how horribly mean some of these responses are.

I just looked at the posts before this one and I still don't see why you would think they were even harsh. Sounded to me like the worst one was the I demand clean air break. The others just stated truths about smoking

There are many many unhealthy habits that so many engage in. For one I know our country has one of the biggest problems with obesity and very few are actually at a healthy weight and drinking!!! I know in patho so many many diseases began with lack of diet and excercise, drinking, and yes smoking. That was what I was trying to say.I know smoking is stinky and what not but I've met a few of the other mentioned kind that are as well. Why attack one unhealthy habit? Really as medical professionals we should want to prevent all unhealthy habits, not just pick one taht we don't personally engage in and attack it.

This is the point, and I think it was the main point of your post - that I disagreed with. If someone is obese, it won't cause me to gain weight. If someone drinks, I won't get drunk. However, if they are driving - I most certainly will voice my criticism with eagerness. That affects me. Second-hand smoke affects me.

Let the smokers be and if you do... well hell they're not gonna be around that long anyhow lol sorry jk kinda

I know you are joking with this one and to that I say, the 10-15 years it can take from onset of COPD until death are awful for everyone concerned.

Anyway, I am sorry for coming across as harsh - I don't mean it that way and I sometimes ramble on too long after my initial quote of a person with stuff directed generally so I gotta work on that!!

[CrunchyMama, ASN, RN]

Interesting how no smokers have commented. Yet so many non-smokers with negative things to say about smoking and healthcare, nursing school, etc. I find it very, very interesting...

Maybe it's because nursing students know the dangers of smoking and there's not too many smokers here? I find it interesting when a healthcare professional/student STILL smokes after learning the dangers of doing so.....

I also feel the same way about drinking alcohol....don't get it....

[DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN]

I felt like a second class citizen when I stilled smoked. Funny, it used to be low class to walk down the street smoking a cigarette (at least where I came from) until you couldn't smoke in offices anymore. Then everyone who smoked lit up while walking along.

If a campus is non-smoking, and the parking lot is considered part of the campus, then they can't be sitting smoking in their cars. Especially as it is highly unlikely that they would sit in the car and smoke with the windows closed.

Face it, the smell of cigarettes is noxious. I thought so even when I smoked. I just wish they would ban some of those nasty perfumes too.

[CrazierThanYou]

Personally, I applaud the new regulations bringing about non-smoking restaurants and non-smoking everything else. The smell of cigarette smoke is disgusting and its a shame that smokers don't realize how horrid they smell. In class, there are 2 smokers in front of me and 1 behind me. They reek.

I used to work at a company that afforded jobs to disabled adults, some of them so severely disabled that they really didn't do any work, it's just a place for them to go. Their "assistants" would take their clients outside in their wheelchairs at the back door and sit there and chain smoked. The poor clients had to sit there in that blue smoke cloud, eyes watering, and weren't even able to speak for themselves to complain. I began a successful campaign to put a stop to it. Sure, some people weren't happy with that but frankly, I am unconcerned about that.

At the clinical site we're at, there is no smoking whatsoever on their property. That includes inside one's personal car and they have cameras everywhere to enforce the policy. Employees can be fired. As nursing students, if we even have a hint of the cigarette smoke smell on our persons or uniforms or whatever, we're sent home with an absence for that day.

And I agree with those who say its a shame a smoker can't get through a shift/movie/meal/whatever without smoking.

Also, it really ticks me off to see parents driving around in a car full of smoke with babies, toddlers, and small children closed up in the chemical cloud, no fresh air to be found. Dramatic? Sure, but its also true.

[OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN]

I just looked at the posts before this one and I still don't see why you would think they were even harsh. Sounded to me like the worst one was the I demand clean air break. The others just stated truths about smoking

This is the point, and I think it was the main point of your post - that I disagreed with. If someone is obese, it won't cause me to gain weight. If someone drinks, I won't get drunk. However, if they are driving - I most certainly will voice my criticism with eagerness. That affects me. Second-hand smoke affects me.

I know you are joking with this one and to that I say, the 10-15 years it can take from onset of COPD until death are awful for everyone concerned.

Anyway, I am sorry for coming across as harsh - I don't mean it that way and I sometimes ramble on too long after my initial quote of a person with stuff directed generally so I gotta work on that!!

Once again I clearly stated in my second post that I did not in any way agree with second hand smoke and whole-heartedly agreed it was good that it is not allowed at hospitals or most anywhere. My point once again I will state is that the smokers are addicts. They need help to quit not just to be told how disgusting they are. An overweight poerson with dm wouldn't be told how horrid they are, they would be taught about the importance of good nutrition and excercise. Someone with a drinking or drug problem would be offered rehabilitation and other forms of help.

My point is I feel better to attack the companies that mass produce cigarettes then the smoker that is so strongly addicted. I know when I was a smoker people telling me how awful and disgusting it was never helped it just made me want a cigarette more. Maybe if someone just offered me some advice on how to quit I would have tried then and listened to them.

And yes the last thing you quoted from me was a joke. And I've done more then watch a stranger suffer from COPD. I have someone I love very much suffering from it now and I know how bad it is so please don't assume things. It was a lighthearted joke-nothing more-so please don't make more of it.

[sharpeimom]

i've never understood the allure of tobacco products, heavy drinking or illegal drug use. they all have the same thing in common as far as i'm concerned. they numb, pacify, and/or create a buzz.

to quote the six year old who lives next door: "big fat hairy deal!":yawn:

[Spikey9001, BSN, RN]

There's literally no positive impact of effect from smoking.

None.

[SarahMaria, MSN, RN]

I am so relieved that hospitals have started requiring smoking staff members to smoke off-campus only. I'm even more grateful for the hospitals that require their employees to not smoke at all.

I don't feel this way because I'm vindictive, but because I'm asthmatic and one of my biggest triggers is second hand smoke. I can't tell you the number of times that I had to go to the ED due to a bad flare up and had to "run the gauntlet" of smoking staff members outside the ED door!!! I mean, come on....I couldn't breathe as it was, that did not help.

The hospitals that are smoke-free not only require staff to smoke elsewhere (if not at all), but also the patients and visitors. [i know I'm going to get slammed for this] I think this is wrong for non-staff and non-critically ill patients. If one is a hospice patient and dying, and he/she wants to go outside and smoke, why not? I also believe that psychiatric patients should be allowed to smoke if they choose to. Many psychiatric patients are heavy smokers and to take that away from them causes distress and many times, violence. I also think upset visitors should have a designated area to smoke or take their loved one out to smoke.

[*4!#6]

I suspect the hostility toward smokers stems largely from the fact that even passive exposure to smoking leads to very real health risks. Someone standing next to an obese person does not get cancer from being exposed to their obesity. Someone who is in a room with an individual indulging in a beer does not have long term health consequences within their own body from that person drinking beer in their presence. I am sure you get my meaning.

Actually I think that alcohol and obesity DO affect others, but in much more insidious ways.

My father was an alcoholic and abused my family, with both violence and words. Has alcohol affected our lives? Yes. And not to mention all those people who are killed every year due to drunk driving. Alcohol does affect other people's lives in very real and very painful ways. If you are responsible with alcohol, you can minimize these effects, just as if you are responsible and respectful of others when smoking.

As far as obesity, we often pay for the mistakes of others, in tax dollars, healthcare resources, etc, in much the same way we will pay for all those diseased smokers.

I think smokers just happen to be an easy target because it is so stigmatized, but please do not tell me that drinking does not effect others. Every choice we make has major ramifications not only on ourselves but for others. When you buy heorin you are not just hurting yourself but perhaps people far away who are killed in street gangs or drug wars. Think of sociology: nothing is as black as white as it seems on the surface.

Also we have to ask, who is smoking and why? Is smoking a phenomena of poor socioeconomic status, are we stigmatizing the poor? Just as the "war on drugs" is more an attack on people of color -- I could find the citation, but African Americans are something ridiculous like 48 times more likely to be imprisioned for drug related charges then people classified as "white."

[*4!#6]

Can anyone find demographics of smokers? I'm willing to bet that they tend to be from disadvantaged backgrounds and have less education. Perhaps including smoking bans we need to improve people's economic situations and work towards socioeconomic and racial equality.

[JROregon, ASN, BSN, RN]

Smell like cigarette smoke, perfume or B.O. and you will be sent home. Stigma? Yes. Can you find a way to get through it? Yes. If I am a little sensitive about smells, then I know my patients are as well. Nauseous from post-surgery medications and illnesses, why make these people feel worse. Deal with your addiction. Here's a positive about smoking - the nicotine speeds up your metabolism and decreases your appetite a little.

[CuriousMe]

The hospitals that are smoke-free not only require staff to smoke elsewhere (if not at all), but also the patients and visitors. [i know I'm going to get slammed for this] I think this is wrong for non-staff and non-critically ill patients. If one is a hospice patient and dying, and he/she wants to go outside and smoke, why not? I also believe that psychiatric patients should be allowed to smoke if they choose to. Many psychiatric patients are heavy smokers and to take that away from them causes distress and many times, violence. I also think upset visitors should have a designated area to smoke or take their loved one out to smoke.

These changes still wouldn't provide a place for you or staff to light up.

When I go to the hospital for an asthma flare-up, my lungs don't only react to smoke from staff members....they react to second hand cigarette smoke from anyone. Again, don't I have the right to receive medical care (when I desperately need it!) without having to walk through a cloud of smoke that will make my respiratory problem worse?

As for Psych patients, I know on the Acute Psych unit I did clinicals on, patients were offered either a nicotrol inhaler or a nicotine patch. They weren't allowed smoke, or drink alcohol....it didn't cause any violence that I witnessed.

As for hospice patients, if the patient is able to go outside...then they're able to make other hospice arrangements (home hospice for example)....there's no reason that the rest of the campus should have to tolerate their second hand smoke. Again, we have no way of knowing which other patients.

Upset visitors have other restrictions besides smoking ( I know my Dad wants a shot of Irish when he's upset...should the hospital start allowing drinking?). In our state you can't even smoke in a bar...are you really proposing that visitors should be able to smoke in the hospital?? How "upset" does a visitor have to be before they're allowed to smoke?