SMOKING

Patients who need to walk outside in a hospital gown trailing IV poles to smoke cigarettes are extremely frustrating. They waste everybody's time. The nurses sometimes have to wheel them outside, plus, I stop by in the 2-3 minutes I have to see them during the day, and they aren't even there.

I understand that smoking is quite possibly the hardest addiction to kick, but it is just bizarre to see a patient outside with IV pole in hand, gown on, no shoes, sick as hell, and smoking. Kind of defeats the purpose of a what we're trying to do at the hospital, don't you think?

On a different note, smoking should be absolutely banned from any public building, including the outdoors part of a restaurant. Sorry, just because you made the extremely bad decision to start smoking doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to enjoy a meal outside. First of all, you smokers stink (how can you not tell?), and secondly, your smoke always seems to blow right in my face. But, when you come into the emergency room for your chest pain, shortness of breath, and massive heart attack, you won't be smoking then...there's no smoking in the hospital.