:angryfire Is there anyone out there who agrees with me?
I work on a ward where we frequently provide palliative care for patients with cancer (amongst other things). I cannot stress how much it infuriates me when nurses who are smokers go into a dying cancer patient's room stinking of cigarette smoke.
In my opinion this is so morally and ethically wrong that I took my concerns to our unit manager after a patient's family made a complaint to me about another nurse. Unfortunately the NUM also smokes like a chimney and bla bla bla bla nothing was done.
Now that I have unloaded I feel more able to look at the situation objectively and decide on a course of action through appropriate channels.
I would welcome any and all opinions on smoking in the workplace.
(Please let it be known that I do not object to any person's right to smoke off the ward if they wish, only in the circumstances descibed above).
i saw this thread and just had to had to comment- i feel that is my right to smoke on my brakes and if that offends people i am sorry but you dont here me complaining when i see some over weight nurse gobbling down fries and a big mac now do you? no of course not because if i did that would be discrimination and with obesity becoming such an epedimic why don't we ban fast food from being served in hospitals, and what message are we sending when an obese nurse can barley walk down the hallway but this is the same nurse that we send in to do pt. teaching about diet and exercise, talk about being a hipocrit. you can say that obesity is not affecting anyone else but what about the children of parents that are obese who are of course eating the same foods and becoming obese or what about the family members who have to take care of these people once they have to heart surgery- obesity can cause a whole slue of health problems down the line and we all see them so lets get real- everyone has there vices even nurses and i will keep mine thankyou very much.
You are correct I have a responbility to care for my pts. to the best of my abiliity but thats it. When it comes to my break time it is not my pt. nor anyone elses business what I do as long as it is not illegal or against hospital policies. If you or anyone else has a problem with me smoking then send me a year supply of patches and some gum and we'll talk, if not I guess it dosent bother you that much. Everyone seems to have an opinion but we should all look in the mirror, I don't know about anyone else here but in nursing school I was taught tolerance . :angryfire
i saw this thread and just had to had to comment- i feel that is my right to smoke on my brakes and if that offends people i am sorry but you dont here me complaining when i see some over weight nurse gobbling down fries and a big mac now do you? no of course not because if i did that would be discrimination and with obesity becoming such an epedimic why don't we ban fast food from being served in hospitals, and what message are we sending when an obese nurse can barley walk down the hallway but this is the same nurse that we send in to do pt. teaching about diet and exercise, talk about being a hipocrit. you can say that obesity is not affecting anyone else but what about the children of parents that are obese who are of course eating the same foods and becoming obese or what about the family members who have to take care of these people once they have to heart surgery- obesity can cause a whole slue of health problems down the line and we all see them so lets get real- everyone has there vices even nurses and i will keep mine thankyou very much.
i am a nurse not a super human[:angryfire /i]
oh for goodness sake! no-one is asking you to be a super human. and since when is fast food served in hospitals? certainly not where i work.
the issue here is nurses who smoke and then breath it all over patients. hardly the same as big mac breath. we are talking about chemicals with a direct link to cancer. as i said when i started this thread, i don't object to anyone's right to smoke appropriately. what concerns me is that patients are frequently (and unwillingly) exposed to cigarette smoke which further endangers their health. and yes i believe a nurse who smokes at work is a hypocrit.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Let's be VERY careful about name-calling and hotheaded words. I do not consider nurses who smoke hypocrites. Smoking is a geniunely hard-to-kick addiction and many good people have it. Let's stick to the concerns smoking and carrying residues to our patients presents, and refrain from attacking others as "hypocrites". It just won't get your point across and will shut lines of communication down.
You are correct I have a responbility to care for my pts. to the best of my abiliity but thats it. When it comes to my break time it is not my pt. nor anyone elses business what I do as long as it is not illegal or against hospital policies. If you or anyone else has a problem with me smoking then send me a year supply of patches and some gum and we'll talk, if not I guess it dosent bother you that much. Everyone seems to have an opinion but we should all look in the mirror, I don't know about anyone else here but in nursing school I was taught tolerance . :angryfire
I am kind of appalled at the attitude or "tone" of this post. I am not a nurse yet, but I have had allergic reactions to the smell of certain cigarrette smoke. Real SCARY respiratory difficulty just from having to be in close contact for a few minutes with someone who reeked of smoke. What if i were the patient lying in the hospital bed waiting for you to come back and "nurse" me back to health? Is it OK or fine that the choices that you make for your breaktime will drastically affect my comfort and respiratory health? It isn't really a question of your personal freedom, it is a question of whether or not your personal freedom is having a detrimental effect to my health and therefore limiting mine. My choice not to smoke would never affect you in any way. Can you say the same for your choice to do so? :uhoh21:
You are correct I have a responbility to care for my pts. to the best of my abiliity but thats it. When it comes to my break time it is not my pt. nor anyone elses business what I do as long as it is not illegal or against hospital policies. If you or anyone else has a problem with me smoking then send me a year supply of patches and some gum and we'll talk, if not I guess it dosent bother you that much. Everyone seems to have an opinion but we should all look in the mirror, I don't know about anyone else here but in nursing school I was taught tolerance . :angryfire
i agree that what you do at home or when out of work, is your right and your business.
but when you take your break at work and return to the unit with the stench of cigarettes, then your 'right' competes with your 'responsibility' to your pts. and the stench of cigarette smoke is a verifiable health risk to many pts.
i too am a smoker. but i never smoke at work. never.
it's unfortunate that you just don't understand the impact that the odor from you smoking, how it affects your pts.:stone
You keep reitterating this same verbage. This applies to people who smoke in public. It does not apply to people who smoke in their own homes or on their own property.
You and I are on the same page. I do reiterate because I also am referring to public smoking. I am NOT referring to personal private smoking on one's own property. I don't care what an individual does on their own time in their own place. It's the same as, "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy. I don't care!
When smoking does affect me in a public area, including the hospital, then I do care.
Another thing: I also reiterated about Scot's ability to enforce their company rule at one's private home. That I will want to read to see if they can legally do this.
Do you understand me now? So jimthorp I will stop now. If you respond and want the last word, ok by me.
You and I are on the same page. I do reiterate because I also am referring to public smoking. I am NOT referring to personal private smoking on one's own property. I don't care what an individual does on their own time in their own place. It's the same as, "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy. I don't care!
When smoking does affect me in a public area, including the hospital, then I do care.
Another thing: I also reiterated about Scot's ability to enforce their company rule at one's private home. That I will want to read to see if they can legally do this.
Do you understand me now? So jimthorp I will stop now. If you respond and want the last word, ok by me.
Well then I misunderstood. We are on the same page. My appolgies!
i like what you said about if the patient is healthy enough to go out and smoke then maybe they really don't need to be in the hospital at all. If the pt.'s are whining enough to go all the way outside to smoke they must be feeling pretty good to want to go out and bear the cold. I'm having pt's all the time beg to go out and smoke (the weather now is around 38 degrees in the afternoon). In the facility where I work the doctor has to write an order for the pt. to be able to go outside and smoke. Of course, most of the dr's don't write the order and tell the pt. to suffer through it. (not in those exact words, but the same concept). So here we have all these pt's wanting to go out and smoke and can't and the nurse walks in reaking of smoke telling the pt. they can't go out and smoke. something wrong here?
Why is it that nurses are allowed to have smoke breaks? doesn't it seem they are just teasing the pt's that are not allowed to smoke?
shadylane21
18 Posts
i saw this thread and just had to had to comment- i feel that is my right to smoke on my brakes and if that offends people i am sorry but you dont here me complaining when i see some over weight nurse gobbling down fries and a big mac now do you? no of course not because if i did that would be discrimination and with obesity becoming such an epedimic why don't we ban fast food from being served in hospitals, and what message are we sending when an obese nurse can barley walk down the hallway but this is the same nurse that we send in to do pt. teaching about diet and exercise, talk about being a hipocrit. you can say that obesity is not affecting anyone else but what about the children of parents that are obese who are of course eating the same foods and becoming obese or what about the family members who have to take care of these people once they have to heart surgery- obesity can cause a whole slue of health problems down the line and we all see them so lets get real- everyone has there vices even nurses and i will keep mine thankyou very much.
i am a nurse not a super human[:angryfire /i]