Doctors who smoke

BMJ 1995;311:945 (7 October)

Letters

Doctors who smoke

Why not exclude doctors with other unhealthy habits too?

EDITOR,--I am encouraged by Simon Chapman's suggestion thatdoctors who smoke are undesirable in primary care.¹ Perhapsit is important that we preserve the fantasy that doctors arefundamentally different from their patients rather than acknowledgingthat we have all of the same human failings and using our jointexperience of imperfection to understand the difficulties weall face in balancing the costs and benefits of our behaviour.We should also ignore Doll et al's findings that "those whostopped smoking before middle age subsequently avoided almostall of the excess risk associated with smoking"² and thus thatwell informed medical students in their 20s are not technicallyendangering their health and are perhaps simply enjoying themselveswhile they can do so with relative impunity.