Agree. Disgraceful. She should have been fired a long time ago.

Seriously! f your wifes life op

Yeah I would have her job if I were you, OP.

I would not have kept my mouth shut about that.

Absolutely. OP, you need to report her. Even if she wasn't serious, that's extremely disrespectful and not the least bit funny.

as someone who works in the medical field and also smokes, that is completely out of line. I hope you reported her and I seriously hope she got fired. that's just ignorant and she doesn't deserve her job.

thats a sick thing to say.... i hope you did report her!! makes me wonder if any of the nurses said anything like that when i was in labor.... i really hate how people out there get a career like that and they cant even handle it!

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I was going to say the same thing! Especially around newborn babies!!! I would be very angry to find out that the nurse handling my brand new baby had just had a smoke break. The toxins will still be on her clothes and that stuff increases the risk of SIDs amongst so many other things. On top of that her unprofessionalism is inexcusable. The hospital would be dumb not to fire her, she's a lawsuit waiting to happen!

Clearly it's your life here that sucks OP. We all sympathise with you. On a side note, don't tell your wife that, she might actually kick the nurse or something. But definitely report her. That's a really unprofessional and not to mention heartless thing to say.

Sometimes it doesn't even help to report it. A nurse was making fun of my sister when she was dying and kept saying she had to go home and clean the Kitty litter box. The nurse kept repeating it and laughing saying this chick has no clue and she just needs to go to Hospice. We reported her to her managing Nurse and she just said she must be having a long difficult day and she will try to have a little chat with her about it. She never did speak to her.

You can sue that nurse for emotional distress

#58 Omg, nurses like that totally... my mother is a nurse, and a lot of my friends are nurses, and hearing about disrespectful abusive nurses like that drives me up the bloody wall. I'm sorry that that happened to you, I hope that that nurse wasn't assigned to your room anymore. #66 I second that.

Exactly! There was a doctor here who was just sued for talking crap about the patient while they were under anesthesia. The patient accidentally recorded the entire operation. It serves her right. Doctors and nurses are there to help people not talk crap about them. If you're irritated with someone, then go home and take it out on your pillow or something. Don't talk crap within ear shot.

This is honestly why I think that to be a nurse or doctor (or firefighter or other related job) you shouldn't be allowed to actively smoke even when off duty. Not that it's bad for you (even though it is) but because the cravings can lead to situations where you need to stay for extended periods helping others without the ability to smoke a cigarette. It can lead to disaster if the cravings become bad enough because you might make mistakes or cut corners to finish the job faster.

A lot of hospitals have nonsmoking policies now. Like the cleveland clinic. They test you for nicotine and if you're positive you don't get the job. they'll retest you 90 days later to reconsider.

That's good. I hope more places pick up on the practice.

At least in my city firefighters have to sign a contract saying they won't dip/smoke or anything like that, but I think that has more to do with cancer rates.

as long as they're doing it then I don't think it matters. Because the thing is addiction can grow to staggering levels and if someone who holds the lives of many people in their hand get a sudden and overwhelming craving for a cigarette or alcohol or some such thing then it can easily lead to the loss of life.

because they get paid well and only care about the money

I've never heard that before, but that is interesting in a morbid kind of way. I have heard nurses have one of the highest drug abuse rates in an occupation, because they have so much contact with different medications. I wonder if there is a correlation between the two?

There's some nurses or doctors that will cause patients to go into a life threatening condition just so they can save them and be seen as a hero. The one big case I heard of was actually with babies since they can't really tell even if they survive.

They don't necessarily "become" sociopaths as a result of their career. They become desensitized to things that are awful and unpleasant-dealing the sick and dying of all ages, cleaning up human waste matter, etc, etc. People who get like this are described as jaded or labeled as burnings, and good superiors suggest the worker dind an alternative noob in a different field. However, the nurse was way out of line to put her nicotine fix as being more important than a human being born. As to the "making people sick so you can save them and be a hero thing," you are most likely referring to 'Munchausen syndrome by proxy' where a person (any person, but it has to be a person in a position to act as a caregiver) exaggerates or otherwise falsifies the symptoms of another to get gratification from caring for or what hint the person be cared for. Also, not even police officers have psychology evaluations as often as they should, and they have government funding. Hospitals have to turn a profit.