Cleveland Clinic completely non-smoking....

It's funny that you mentioned this. DH just told me about him. He's now trying to boot McDonald's from ALL hospitals.

While I hate Cosgrove, I don't disagree w/removing McDonald's from hospital cafeterias. Even when I was 18 I thought it was absurd that they had one. I remember saying they were creating their own future patients.

I wonder if they booted Pizza Hut too.

[rainbabies]

one of the critical care docs(that i worked for) the head of the ICU actually, used to say..."why promote health, fitness, and non smoking!!?? this is what we come to work for, they pay the bills!! without them, we have nothing!"

i was never sure if he was serious or not.

[GrayMatterWife]

As long as they're at-will employees, I don't think that "smoker" is a protected class, so I'm not sure what rights they are taking away.

I mean, it's not like you have a right to employment. They can keep smoking, just not while having that job.

ITA. What would be the Constitutional violation here?... I think an employer is fully within his rights to discriminate against an employee due to that employee's status as a smoker.

Unless...the employee MUST smoke as a part of his religious practice... What about Rastfarians?!? I smell 1st and 14th amendment issues here!...which, in this case, would smell a lot like pot.

[reciprocity]

Don't forget Title VII!

[DCJenn]

Don't forget peyote!

Jenn

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Cleveland Clinic completely non-smoking....

[quote="poky"] . . . the Cleveland Clinic has a policy of not hiring anyone who smokes, and will not allow anyone who does smoke to smoke on the premises (this part might not be quite as recent; it wasn't clear to me). . .quote]

Just out of curiosity, how the heck to they retain any respiratory therapists?? Every single RT we know smokes like a chimney stack. It's an irony similar to that of neurosurgeons who ride Harleys without helmets...

[DCJenn]

and all of the surgeons who decide that woodworking MUST be their hobby.

How many hand injuries have we had here over the years?

Jenn

[GrayMatterWife]

Don't forget Title VII!

Absolutely!! Hey, how many Rastafarians do you think the hospital employs? Maybe we could get together and represent these guys in a class action suit? What do contingency guys take these days...35%?

[GrayMatterWife]

and all of the surgeons who decide that woodworking MUST be their hobby.

How many hand injuries have we had here over the years?

Jenn

Yeah, my DH took it personally when I insisted that we HIRE someone to do some carpentry that involved a jigsaw blade...I told him I was just protecting my investment!!

[SuzySunshine]

and all of the surgeons who decide that woodworking MUST be their hobby.

How many hand injuries have we had here over the years?

Jenn

Yeah, my DH took it personally when I insisted that we HIRE someone to do some carpentry that involved a jigsaw blade...I told him I was just protecting my investment!!

We know of at least three cases here, two with co-residents of DH and one a CRNA that we know in the last year alone. DH continues to buy power tools but he never has time to use them so I don't worry about it that much.

[reciprocity]

Don't forget Title VII!

Absolutely!! Hey, how many Rastafarians do you think the hospital employs? Maybe we could get together and represent these guys in a class action suit? What do contingency guys take these days...35%?

35% if it settles before summary judgment.

[Meenah]

Hmm, I would hardly use the effectiveness of the public school system as a rational for creating more government sponsored programs.

I'm sure that wasn't supposed to be funny but I just laughed so hard there is coffee on my keyboard now!!!!! How true!!

So rather than trying to place blame, better to just treat everything and accept that some people will cost more than others.

Lots of problems with American healthcare. And I've got no well-thought out solutions or expertise. But when I read the above it reminded me of one of the things I hate about some of the soundbites I hear. Namely, for all intensive purposes, (by and large at least for catastrophic stuff and non-catastrophic stuff that walks into the ER every day across America) healthcare doesn't turn away indigent folks (at least in the ER).

Thousands upon thousands of uninsured persons day after day do get treatment in ERs everywhere across this land ... even persons who came here illegally and are not citizens. Show me another country in the entire world that treats illegal visitors to their country for free....and still feels bad about not doing enough.

Granted, ER visits are not to be stand ins for preventative care and real insurance...though they are for millions of persons. But hospitals, taxpayers, etc. etc. do pick up the tab even in the midst of a broken system.

Also, in socialized medicine countries most folks get extra insurance over and above what the government provides because they don't see the general plan (which they received after being taxed the hell out of) as remarkably efficient or great care.

And there is a moral hazard with treating everything so rapidly as well. When things are not paid for (even a copay) people tend to use it more without thinking. E.G. heading to the doc at the first sign of the sniffles. Of course I understand there is indeed a moral hazard already in place for indigent here ... if medicaid, write offs, etc. means that a visit to the ER for sniffles at 3 AM is essentially free, then why not use the ER that way for ever.

Finally, some talk about doctors as if they aren't doing their part in the U.S. If you want to look at medical professionals, who shockingly by and large DON'T EVER treat indigent or medicaid patients....look no further than dentists in the U.S.

[GrayMatterWife]

I know federal bureaucrats are everyone's favorite whipping boys, but I am one, and I work with some of the smartest, most competent people I've ever met. Not everyone is great, but the idea that the government can't run things just because they're the government is completely unfair.

I agree with your frustration, as a federal civil servant, at the assumption made that the government is incompetent at running things assigned to its domain. I also work for the federal government, and I bristle when it is suggested that I am basically working for a bunch of lazy, free-loading government employees (which is a frequent implication).

I suspect that, at the heart of it (underneath all the unhelpful "the government can only run things into the ground" jokes), the real issue is not whether the federal government CAN do it, but whether the federal government SHOULD do it. Many people feel that schooling is an issue best handled at the local level and see it as one of the rights reserved to the states in the Constitution.

Of course, the federal government is always free to offer money to state school districts if the school districts agree to do "X" (perfectly constitutional bribery: the same way the federal government got all states to raise the drinking age to 21--by making road subsidies contingent on such a state law). However, as it currently is, the school districts also are free to leave the money on the table if they do not want to implement "X". If, however, the federal government were to be "in charge" of public schooling on a national level, the implementation of "X" would be nondiscretionary at a local level. And therein lies the rub: where would you prefer the policy decisions for your child's education be made--on a national or local level? There are very different schools of thought (no pun intended) on this.

Of course, the funny thing about "No Child Left Behind"--while many liberals hated it (pretty much because George Bush implemented it and everything he does must be evil), many conservatives didn't like it either, because it was a federal effort to affect education at a state level (and their response reflected the belief that the the evilness of the federal goverment is directly correlative to how attentuated the federal government's actions are from its specified roles in the Constitution).

But at least no one is being dramatic.

[GrayMatterWife]

/hijack

- the one who told me about her niece's funeral ("She died in a drug deal gone bad and I told my sister, "girl, you can't do an open casket! They shot her face off! But they did a good job...")

/end hijack

:happyrolling: :funnycry:

Unbelievable what people will say! Re: the above quote: did she mean they did a good job shooting off her niece's face, or that they did a good job putting it back together at the funeral home???!! Either way, good grief!