Should doctors be allowed to ask if a patient smokes
Why don’t they ask about alcohol and drug use
When Anna (not her real name) developed a cough, she thought nothing of it at first. She visited her local pharmacy, bought a cough mixture, and went home.
When her cough showed no signs of improvement she made an appointment to see her doctor. At the doctor’s office, she was tested for Covid-19, found negative and admitted into the doctor’s office.
“Do you smoke?” the doctor asked when Anna told him of her cough.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well then, I suggest you stop smoking and your cough will soon go away,” he said.
On her way out, Anna bought a stronger cough mixture and returned home.
Two weeks later her cough had not improved and she went to see another doctor. By then Anna was in bad shape. Not only had her cough worsened but she was short of breath and tired easily.
“Are you a smoker,” this doctor too asked her. When Anna confirmed her grunted. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I suggest you quit smoking and you’ll soon be able to breathe normally again,” he said.
Another week passed during which Anna got progressively worse. When a neighbor called on her to see how she was doing, she was shocked at the state of Anna.
“What did the doctor say?” the neighbor asked.
“I went to see two doctors,” Anna said, “and they said there’s nothing wrong with me, that my cough is due to smoking.”
“Baloney,” the neighbor said. “I’m taking you to the hospital and when asked if you’re a smoker say no.”
Anna did not feel comfortable lying but when asked if she was a smoker dutifully said that she wasn’t. The doctor listened to her chest and sent her for X-rays. After reviewing the X-rays he sent her for a CT scan. The CT scan revealed that Anna had fluid on her lungs.
Anna was fitted with two draining pipes, tapping the fluid off her lungs, and after two days in the hospital, she was able to return home.
Anna’s experience begs the question, should doctors be allowed to ask if a person smokes. If Anna had denied that she smoked from the beginning, she would have received proper medical attention and she had never grown into such a dire state.
At the same time, doctors seldom ask how much alcohol their patients consume and if they use drugs.
Smokers in general are being shunned. Not so long ago smoking was considered fashionable and people of all walks of life smoked. The majority lived long healthy lives. Then the live healthy movement started and smoking was seen as disgusting.
While smoking is an addiction, the worst addiction of then all, alcoholics did not suffer this damning fate. On the contrary, people felt sorry for alcoholics and considered it not an addiction but a disease.
As for drug addiction, now that became fashionable. While not exactly socially acceptable, more and more people tried all sorts of drugs considering it a sign of wealth. For those who struggled with a drug addiction there were rehab clinics, some so grand that going into rehab was like going on a luxury vacation.
So why the shunning of smoking? Some will say that smoking causes lung cancer. While that might be true, there have been cases where people develop lung cancer who never smoked and have never been around people who smoked. They seem to forget though that alcohol leads to a variety of diseases such as liver cancer, heart attack, and stroke, to name but a few.
As for the use of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, the side effects are far worse than that of smoking a regular cigarette.
Marijuana
Side effects of marijuana use: lung cancer, heart attack, stroke, acute bronchitis, chronic coughing, increased sputum (“phlegm”), shortness of breath, wheezing, increased risk for osteoporosis, delusions, disorganized thinking and speech, hallucinations.
Cocaine
Side effect of cocaine use: headaches, convulsions and seizures, heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. Mood problems, sexual trouble, lung damage, HIV or hepatitis if you inject it, bowel decay if you swallow it, loss of smell, nosebleeds, runny nose, and trouble swallowing if you snort it. An overdose can lead to death.
Heroin
Side effects of heroin use: insomnia, collapsed veins for people who inject the drug, damaged tissue inside the nose for people who sniff or snort it, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses (swollen tissue filled with pus), constipation and stomach cramping, liver and kidney disease, lung complications, including pneumonia, mental disorders such as depression and antisocial personality disorder, sexual dysfunction for men, irregular menstrual cycles for women.
In addition, alcoholics and drug users do not only put themselves in harm’s way, but those around them. Every day spouses, children and pets suffer abuse due to intoxication. Every day vehicle accidents due to drunken driving claim the lives of innocent people, or leave them hurt to such an extent that they require hospitalization.
Smoking on the other hand doesn’t lead to violent outbursts followed by abuse, and neither does smoking cause vehicle accidents. Taking these facts into account, isn’t it safe to say that smoking is the least dangerous of these addictions? As such smokers should not be shunned and doctors should not be allowed to ask if a patient smokes.
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