Why do so many nurses smoke?

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  • NoeHead
    NoeHead Posts: 516 Member
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    It's funny you mention this. I quit smoking until I got into nursing school from the stress and the eating helped me calm down after a patient I got used to seeing in the hallway or in Long term health ward/Oncology unit would pass away.

    trying to stay away from a 12 hour shift was difficult too.

    I guess its all in how you deal with stress/emotions..for me personally I dealt with eating and smoking because I'd feel too tired to even think about going to the gym after being on my feet all day. And I was just a nursing student then.

    By the time I graduated nursing school all of the nursing students were on prescription xanax. Except me...probably 'cuz I ate and smoked. Also blew up like a balloon. :wink:
    LOL After I finished my NCLEX exam I finished a bottle of wine while crying positive that I have failed...the exam was at 7am.. lol


    I realized nursing wasn't my thing...I was afraid I'd either be one of the tainted nurse population that would be hateful years down the road or would still have issues being emotionally objective and not cry on the way home because the patient in the terminal ward passed.


    HELLO DESK JOCKEY WORLD! haha
  • WhataBroad
    WhataBroad Posts: 1,091 Member
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    In before the lock :tongue:
    All the nurses I know are pretty trashy so... yeah, there's that.
    tumblr_mtbz6s2wUd1s8n4sio1_500.jpg
  • gabbygirl78
    gabbygirl78 Posts: 936 Member
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    Maybe because its legal to go away and have a smoke, they could get in serious trouble for killing some of the patients they have to deal with.

    True! We can't even legally sedate them for being a PITA! Uggghhh!!!

    I know!! That sucks sometimes lol!
  • scot30316
    scot30316 Posts: 169 Member
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    How is there so much discussion on this? Only reason to smoke for everyone....To look cool ;)
  • mrslcoop
    mrslcoop Posts: 317 Member
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    Nursing has a high rate of obesity as well.

    Yep. All of my friends and most of my family are nurses and 80% of them are at least overweight if not more.
  • krystina_letitia9
    krystina_letitia9 Posts: 697 Member
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    I get that the job is stressful and all that...

    Statistics? I'm an RN and know far more nurses who do not smoke than who do. Just saying. :smile:
  • lucan07
    lucan07 Posts: 509
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    How is there so much discussion on this? Only reason to smoke for everyone....To look cool ;)

    Wrong I smoke for health reasons approved by the consultants but they won't give me my *kitten* on prescription!
  • KeepCalmNGetyaSweatOn
    KeepCalmNGetyaSweatOn Posts: 361 Member
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    I believe it's because they're so busy taking care of EVERYONE ELSE ALL THE TIME!
  • tbresina
    tbresina Posts: 558 Member
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    I work for one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world and it does bother me that most of the nurses are heavy smokers and obese but its their lives. I just feel bad for the patients that are ill and have to smell their cig stained clothes, they try to hide it with perfume but then it ends up flowered smoke, no good either. I actually feel sorry for them because they are educated people and still choose this unhealthy lifestyle!
  • Kkonowal
    Kkonowal Posts: 97 Member
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    Give us nurses a break unless you are one people have no idea what we have to deal with! Yes its totally hypocritical as is overweight nurses, nurses who excessively drink, etc but remember we have to deal with you people every day ( or in my case night)
  • dcglobalgirl
    dcglobalgirl Posts: 207 Member
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    There are lots of studies showing that people who do any kind of shift work (night shifts especially) have higher rates of depression, obesity, etc. I would wager that the smoking is another way of dealing with the stress of the job and shift work.
  • NRSPAM
    NRSPAM Posts: 961 Member
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    It's funny you mention this. I quit smoking until I got into nursing school from the stress and the eating helped me calm down after a patient I got used to seeing in the hallway or in Long term health ward/Oncology unit would pass away.

    trying to stay away from a 12 hour shift was difficult too.

    I guess its all in how you deal with stress/emotions..for me personally I dealt with eating and smoking because I'd feel too tired to even think about going to the gym after being on my feet all day. And I was just a nursing student then.

    By the time I graduated nursing school all of the nursing students were on prescription xanax. Except me...probably 'cuz I ate and smoked. Also blew up like a balloon. :wink:
    LOL After I finished my NCLEX exam I finished a bottle of wine while crying positive that I have failed...the exam was at 7am.. lol


    I realized nursing wasn't my thing...I was afraid I'd either be one of the tainted nurse population that would be hateful years down the road or would still have issues being emotionally objective and not cry on the way home because the patient in the terminal ward passed.


    HELLO DESK JOCKEY WORLD! haha

    Lol. I felt like I knew nothing on the exam when I took the NCLEX. I was also the first one out of there, so I thought I had failed too, but NOPE! :happy:
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
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    Just thinking out loud here...

    So you know smoking (or being overweight) is detrimental to your health but you have a job where are you are seeing more than your share of death. And not just old people but children and people in the prime of their life dying from nothing that they did wrong.

    On some level I think a lot might think "Why bother taking care of myself when death comes knocking with apparent randomness?"

    I know this was my thought process back when I smoked in my 20's and had a period of time when I knew a LOT of people that died fairly young. You have to die of something right?
  • bloominheck
    bloominheck Posts: 869 Member
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    I work for one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world and it does bother me that most of the nurses are heavy smokers and obese but its their lives. I just feel bad for the patients that are ill and have to smell their cig stained clothes, they try to hide it with perfume but then it ends up flowered smoke, no good either. I actually feel sorry for them because they are educated people and still choose this unhealthy lifestyle!

    It is strange that they even allow nurses to wear perfume. I work in an academic medical center, and staff is not to wear perfume.
    When patients are ill the scent of perfume, (no matter how lovely it may be), can affect them negatively.:huh:
  • NRSPAM
    NRSPAM Posts: 961 Member
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    :smokin: :drinker: :smokin: :drinker: :smokin: :drinker: :smokin: :drinker: :yawn:
  • lucan07
    lucan07 Posts: 509
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    Give us nurses a break unless you are one people have no idea what we have to deal with! Yes its totally hypocritical as is overweight nurses, nurses who excessively drink, etc but remember we have to deal with you people every day ( or in my case night)

    I agree, having spent some time in hospital over the past few years I have seen nurses treated appallingly on occasions and stepped in to point it out many times. Some people are just A***oles when they feel well, so when they are sick they go into overdrive, nurses have my respect for the job they do!
  • Jleonra
    Jleonra Posts: 42
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    Who cares? their lives, their bodies.

    As long as they don't do it inside their workplaces, IDGAF.
  • SoDamnHungry
    SoDamnHungry Posts: 6,998 Member
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    Because it looks cool and all the other kids are doing it.
  • NRSPAM
    NRSPAM Posts: 961 Member
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    Give us nurses a break unless you are one people have no idea what we have to deal with! Yes its totally hypocritical as is overweight nurses, nurses who excessively drink, etc but remember we have to deal with you people every day ( or in my case night)

    I agree, having spent some time in hospital over the past few years I have seen nurses treated appallingly on occasions and stepped in to point it out many times. Some people are just A***oles when they feel well, so when they are sick they go into overdrive, nurses have my respect for the job they do!

    :flowerforyou:
  • NRSPAM
    NRSPAM Posts: 961 Member
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    ^^^ This made me think...if you really knew what my job, (and my life for that matter) entailed, you would, instead be asking, why don't nurses drink more? Lol

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