Healthcare workers need to step up...

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2010/jan/18/smokers-need-not-apply-job/

I came across this article yesterday and it had amazing timing.  Walking into work yesterday, I was thinking about how unhealthy our society is.  The New England Journal of Medicine just published an article stating 1 out of 3 people are obese!  We have a huge obesity problem with the children in the Columbus area.  I was trying to think about how this all became about.  It just became the norm to be an overweight person.  As I walked into the hospital thinking this, I walk right by the parents of sick children smoking in the parl across the street from the hospital.  I wondered how poor of role models we are for our children.  We smoke and we are overweight.

As I walk into the hospital, I realize that we are not good role models in health care either.  Society cannot control parents, but we can control who are children look to in a hospital and in our schools.  It got me thinking.  Should we higher people in a hospital who smoke?  Even more out there, should we hire people who are obese?  These are very iffy topics of discussion, but it got me thinking.  If you were a child and you came into a hospital you see that the people who are supposed to be making you healthier are not even healthy themselves.  It makes no sense.  Health is not just about having a good heart or having healthy bones.  It is well rounded.  Study after study has indicated that smoking leads to many of these health problems.  Maybe we should ban smokers from working in a health care study.  I don't think it is too far off from reality.  However, where do you stop?  Can you really deny employment to someone who does something legal in their spare time at home?  I am not a fan of having the government control our lives, but I am a fan of providing role models for our children.  If you want to work in health care, then you should be a healthy person.  Do you take golf lessons from someone who cannot play golf?  Or take baking advice from someone who always burns the meal?  Of course not, you only take advice from someone who walks the walk.  We (people in health care) need to be healthier role models for our children.  We cannot accept the norm of having obese people treating our children.  I do not know where the line is.  I do not know if I could ever set the line.  This is a very sensitive topic and could have many unknown ramifications.  It is just a thought outside of the box.  I do however agree with the article.  When you become a health care worker, you are committed to the health of the community and the patients it deserves.

Disclosure:  All ramifications of such harsh decisions have not been fully investigated, so I would not support such an idea at the moment.  I do think it makes for interesting debate on how healthcare workers need to step up and walk the walk of a healthy lifestyle (whether that be smoking, drugs, obesity, etc...).

And an interesting facebook status related to the story: "Pregnant woman in hospial with chili dog in one hand and pack of Newports in her back pocket telling the nurse that ppl are trying to hurt her baby...."