Impact of two ambulatory care training programs on smoking-cessation activities.

Abstract

Tobacco use causes significant morbidity and mortality. Resident physicians at the George Washington University Medical Center are trained to counsel patients to stop smoking. I retrospectively reviewed charts of 300 patients treated by resident physicians in the Department of Medicine (200) and the Department of Health Care Sciences (100). In the 200 patients cared for by resident physicians in the traditional internal medicine training program, a smoking history was obtained in 93 (47%). Forty-seven patients (51%) smoked, and 7 smokers (15%) were counseled to stop smoking. In 100 patients cared for by resident physicians in the primary care internal medicine training program, a smoking history was obtained in 94 patients (94%). Twenty-three patients (24%) smoked, and 11 (48%) were counseled to stop smoking. Resident physicians in the primary care training program obtained more smoking histories and counseled more patients to stop smoking. Further study is necessary to evaluate strategies that can be used in residency training to encourage smoking-cessation counseling.