Who will bell the cat?

Tobacco users looking to quit are often asked to seek help from their physicians or doctors. There are numerous studies that have authenticated that advice and help of a doctor can increase quit rates.


But the big question here is, can doctors give adequate advice if they themselves are under the influence of smoking and tobacco use.


Evidence of high (22.4%) prevalence of smoking among health care personnel, especially wannabe doctors, comes from a study of current smoking among 333 medical students, selected randomly from four batches of a teaching institution.


The study titled 'Prevalence and factor associated with current smoking among medical students in coastal South India,' analysed students in a cross-sectional study conducted during January and February 2009. The study subjects were given a self-administered pre-tested questionnaire and smoking status as per the WHO criteria.


More significantly, the study found widespread deficiencies in knowledge that smoking was an important causal factor for many diseases like gastro-intenstinal malignancy, heart problems, asthma and emphysema among students of different classes.


Further, only half of the study subjects were willing to quit smoking. Like with other student population, here too, peer pressure emerged as a major that got the medical students hooked on to this habit.

Who will bell the call then?


Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22710529


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