Smoking as a bar to nursing - beyond silly

MSO4foru, ADN · Sep 10, 2019

Slippery slope indeed. What's next- on site dietitian for nurses while buying groceries? I understand there will always be people who abuse system, but ultimately my job dosen't own me. Ps- I drank 3 beers tonight with my dinner.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Sep 10, 2019

This isn't just about insurance. Smokers cost employers a lot money in terms of loss of productivity, more call outs, etc. This has been well documented.

It's possible that obesity (especially morbid obesity) may be just as costly, if not more, so don't be surprised if we eventually see BMI influencing hiring decisions.

Walti, LPN, LVN, RN, EMT-I · Sep 10, 2019

Smoke breaks are not a right. Breaks however are a right. Smoking is a horrible habit and I truly wish as a young medic in Vietnam often wondering if I was going to be alive the next day that I didn't start. I did. The military used to give us cigarettes with our "C" rations. You might have heard about them. Anyway we got a package of 3 cigarettes and a book of matches with each meal. Many of us got hooked and for those who have quit you know just how horribly addictive they are and how hard they are to give up. I've been told giving up heroin is easier. As I said, I'm really glad Chantix was invented, it made quitting easy for me. Not before I was diagnosed with COPD. I truly wish tobacco had never been found to be pleasurable to smoke. My life will be shorter because of it.

20 minutes for a smoke break? Not back when I was smoking. We just stepped outside, lit up smoked for maybe 3 minutes and stepped back inside and popped a breath mint. Hopefully it was windy and our clothes didn't smell to bad. Smoke free campuses are a fairly recent phenomenon.

Go back even further and you found ashtrays at the bedside, smoking was allowed in the nurses station and cigarette vending machines were in the cafeteria.

In the 60s and the 70s and i know I'm dating myself, the majority of nurses along with the rest of the population were smokers.

Now I can use my disease as an example for youngsters just starting but I find what is even more effective is the cost. I tell them that no one who starts smoking will know how much they will be smoking in 5 or 10 years. Maybe it's only 2 cigarettes a day now but in a year it could be 10 and 2 years a pack of 20. Then get out the calculator and hand it to them. 365 days time $10.00 a pack is only $3650.00 a year and now think about 20 years which is $73,000.00 up in smoke. Then ask them if they would like to have kids and most of them actually do. Tell them of all of the things they won't be able to buy their kids because they will need the money for themselves, possibly even to the point of not being able to feed them as well as they'd like.

Then I will tell them that when I started cigarettes were 50 cents a pack forty odd years ago. What will they cost in 10 more years? Do you think you will be able to afford it?

Okay, my rant is over and don't get me started on vaping..

Walti, LPN, LVN, RN, EMT-I · Sep 10, 2019

Horseshoe, it has been well documented that 47% of statistics are made up on the spot. Loss of productivity? How if it's confined to mandated break time. Call outs? I presume you mean calling in sick. Most of the nurses I worked with did not smoke (at least in recent years) Most of them also did not have the same work ethic as I did. When you called off in the ER you might cause the department to work short or with a non ER nurse floated to the department. Way to many of my co-workers would call in if they had something they really wanted to do. If they asked in advance for the time off and couldn't get it, it looked bad if they called in.

LovingLife123 · Sep 10, 2019

I think there’s something else to consider here that I’m surprised has not been brought up. Second and third hand smoke are dangerous. When you have a smoker who smokes in their car on the way to work, it’s all over them. I have to inhale it. It’s in their scrubs, hair........ that is dangerous.

Yes, my BMI is on the higher side. I have had 3 kids, I have pcos. I also exercise 4 hours a week, my sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart rate are great. I get checked regularly. I take zero medications except some ibuprofen. I’m not a danger to anyone around me. The smoker is.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Sep 10, 2019

9 hours ago, Walti said:
Horseshoe, it has been well documented that 47% of statistics are made up on the spot. Loss of productivity? How if it's confined to mandated break time. Call outs? I presume you mean calling in sick. Most of the nurses I worked with did not smoke (at least in recent years) Most of them also did not have the same work ethic as I did. When you called off in the ER you might cause the department to work short or with a non ER nurse floated to the department. Way to many of my co-workers would call in if they had something they really wanted to do. If they asked in advance for the time off and couldn't get it, it looked bad if they called in.

An anecdote of one is not data. You seem rather defensive. We aren't talking about you personally, your work ethic compared to your coworkers; this is referring to smokers as a population in general that has actually been studied ad nauseum, not "statistics made up on the spot." Smokers are expensive for employers, which is exactly why many are screening them out. They certainly aren't doing this "just because."

Obesity is also expensive-current trends say this group may be the next target.

Nowhere in this discussion have I said that I agree that smokers or obese workers should not be hired. Just discussing the reasons why we are seeing this kind of thing happening.

2Ask · Sep 10, 2019

11 hours ago, mmc51264 said:
And when do the parameters start edging toward age-challenged?
...
I am also 55. Am I going to be discriminated against because of this?? I am fit, I can run circles around nurses I am twice as old.

Age discrimination happens but I'd wager that research would support that people over 55 do not job hop nearly as much and will never be out for extended maternity leave. And perhaps even do not call in sick as much??? (I have left multiple jobs with weeks of unused sick time in the bank... I only call in sick if I am sick. I wonder if anyone has ever studied sick time use by age?).

Found a chart on sick calls by age. Over 46 years old 41-44% call in 0 (ZERO!) days in a year. Good deal for the employer! Calling in 10 or more days, the 18-30 year olds are the highest.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/682924/sick-leave-days-among-adults-us-by-age/

Walti, LPN, LVN, RN, EMT-I · Sep 10, 2019

Point taken and I am probably defensive of my own experiences. I have noted resentment or perhaps it was prejudice from some of my non-smoking co-workers back when I was still addicted. The worst of them would spend at least an hour a day at work surfing eBay or Amazon. On the company dollar.

I certainly agree that tobacco use is costly to society as a whole. I think loss of productivity is probably at least somewhat associated with regulations that dis-allowed it in the workplace. I also agree that those regulations were appropriate. The health costs to everyone are tremendous. At the moment I'm wondering if their is life after chemo as my wife has just finished her 4th infusion after the RUL lobectomy. Her recovery from this round is taking much longer than anticipated. I truly wish that we could wipe tobacco of off the face of earth.

It looks like a partial post of my reply on this post has accidentally been sent.

I also really resent the cost to taxpayers as we hand out welfare to support the children of mothers and fathers who are spending thousands of dollars a year to support their addiction instead of their families.

.On the obesity issue I do remember one co-worker who could not run to the codes. She simply weighed too much. Consequentially we assigned her to the critical care beds when she worked as there was no better nurse in the hospital to have at a code.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Sep 10, 2019

On 9/7/2019 at 12:02 PM, adventure_rn said:
That makes sense in theory, but in practice it is such a pain in the butt. I worked at a hospital that was trying to roll out an incentive-based program where you could get up to $1,500 rebate off your insurance by earning points. There was *so* much paperwork; earning the points felt like having to submit an insurance claim. Plus, the whole thing felt super-invasive (I don't really want employee health knowing when I went to the OB-GYN, even if it will earn me points). I was a huge headache and I honestly don't think it made me any healthier; it just made me more resourceful at finding loopholes.

We had a similar type of program for a couple of years. They dropped it due to non-participation. The smokers pretty much accepted the higher premiums as a direct result of testing positive for nicotine, usually we declined the battery of tests as we knew it the nicotine would be positive so why bother with the rest. The people who were most upset where the healthy lifestyle folks when they found out their premiums would be affected for all sorts of other testing benchmarks. For instance the first year premiums weren't affected for any test results other than nicotine, but the second year if your cholesterol didn't go down your premiums went up. Over 3/4 the staff said heck no to that and refused to test for anything the following year automatically triggering the higher premium policy. It got to where it cost the employer more to manage the different policies and HR got tired of fielding all the insurance coverage and cost questions so they dropped that policy like a hot potato.

brianbooth, RN · Sep 10, 2019

Some fascinating information here for Brit nurses.

On age as an employment bar: a major UK company chain called B&Q, which sells hardware, decorating materials, fitted kitchens and bathrooms, gardening stuff - and more beside - tried an experiment in the 1990s where they actively employed older people, including (mostly) those beyond the state retirement age. These were floor jobs.

They found that these people worked more efficiently, were more punctual, used up less sick leave - and tended to be able to answer customer queries more knowledgeably.

In no time flat, they upped the programme, and a lot of other similar companies scrambled to get on the bandwagon.

A lesson to be learned there.

MSO4foru, ADN · Sep 24, 2019

Again- my Job is my job. I do not think that based upon any specific genetics or my weight I, or whether or not i chose to use legal products should have any bearing on my employment. Few years back had a lovely marathon running coworker. She signed up for the discounted health insurance based on b/p, cholesterol, BMI etc. She did not get discounted rate even though meeting all those parameters because she had genetic alopecia. No lie. She ran 10Ks " for fun".

brianbooth, RN · Sep 24, 2019

Thank you, MSOforu.

I am going to reiterate my comments so far, so we don't stray off track.

My entry into nursing was strongly contested because on the form, under 'religion', I entered 'none'. Yet my worst experiences, and my wife's, have been under nurses and one particular midwife who all believed that women bore Eve's curse, and should suffer for it.

If you smoke - as I do - it does not matter a toss, providing you can move fast in an emergency, and you don't exhale tobacco breath over your patients.

Ditto with weight. BMI is a nonsense. If you can run, you are OK by me.

Let's appoint nurses by ability, not ticked boxes.