no more, no less. a pediatrician looks at ALL parents as POTENTIAL abusers.

[Aristus]

234. As you have already picked up, it's getting harder and harder for me to be compassionate on this

subject.

Campaigns to end smoking have been around since before I was born. And yet, every day, someone else takes up the habit.

Ever see those people walking around with the cannisters strapped to their hip? And the cannula up their noses? My first thought when I see them is: "Oh, now you want oxygen? All those years you were smoking, and inhaling carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and every chemical lung irritant known to industrial science, you could have had oxygen for free!"

There's a time for hand-holding. I do a lot of that. There's a time for gentle guidance. I do a lot of that, too. And there's a time to say: "Stop doing that!"

I feel bad that this seems like inflated ego to you. But I don't have all the answers. And every day, my one overriding question to myself when I leave the clinic is: "Did I do good medicine?" Some days, the answer is 'yes'; other days, I admit to myself that something could have been done better. But I'm not stop going to stop imploring my patients to quit smoking. That would be giving up. And I have no interest in seeing the tobacco companies win.