Commercials had “doctors” selling cigarettes. So it wasn’t a surprise, in the mid-1950s, to see doctors smoking. When I was in 4th grade, once a week my mother took me to a doctor for allergy tests and shots for my asthma. After getting that week’s series of scratch tests, we’d go into the doctor’s office to discuss the results from the previous week. He had a large, overflowing ashtray on his desk, and the air was thick and gray from his chain-smoking. When the testing finally ended and they delivered a long list of allergies, they taught Mom how to give me the prescribed allergy shots; there was no prohibition about exposure to tobacco smoke. I eventually became a smoker.
Fast forward, I finally quit smoking 17 years ago. I’ve been on oxygen since a pulmonary embolism that was ironically concurrent with the quitting smoking. Five years later I was diagnosed with lung cancer and had a portion of the right lung removed. The cancer has not recurred, but the diagnosis of COPD is permanent. There is one more notch on my regulator before it’s not able to deliver sufficient oxygen.
The decision to smoke was my own, that is the only blame that attaches. But I still wonder if I would have made a better choice if a different doctor had been involved.
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