The logical bystander does not stand apart from this with a sense of superiority, but with a sense of curiosity, and with the backdrop, in my case at least, of never being a smoker. What would it have taken, at that moment in the doctor’s office, for the conversation to pause? Not to reject outright, but simply to question. What is this doing? Why is this being suggested? What evidence supports it? Small questions, asked early, have a way of preventing larger problems from embedding themselves later.