Putting Tobacco Cessation and Prevention into Undergraduate Medical Education

Training medical students in tobacco prevention and cessation skills is critical to have competent physicians who are prepared to address the grave levels of morbidity and mortality associated with tobacco use. Medical students should possess adequate knowledge of the risks of tobacco use and acquire appropriate skills for helping their patients in smoking prevention and cessation. However, in India, enough attention has not been given to elicit the active participation of physicians in tobacco control. Particularly, the medical students have remained an unexplored potential and the missed opportunity. Keeping this in view, a program was undertaken to develop the skills and competence of medical students with the objective of improving medical student inquiry into smoking and the delivery of advice accordingly for patients in their clinical year’s routine consultations. The targeted learners were 149 1st-year medical and dental students of SCB Medical College, Cuttack, Orissa, India, who had appeared the second semester examination; 84 of the participants were male. We attempted to determine whether a curriculum on tobacco intervention could improve relevant knowledge, attitudes and self-confidence and be applied in students’ early clinical experience.