Smoking among young doctors in Hong Kong: a message to medical educators

A survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire to examine the smoking habits, attitudes and practices of 151 doctors in their pre-registration year. The response rate was 88%. Over 80% of the respondents had never smoked. Less than 7% of the men smoked daily and none of the women smoked. Despite a very low smoking rate among the respondents, there were shortcomings in attitudes and practices. The study demonstrated that even in a place like Hong Kong, where the social climate on smoking is already changing in a healthy direction, significant deficiencies in our graduates can still arise if teaching on smoking and its control is undertaken in an uncoordinated manner. We argue that a specific course on the important aspects of smoking and health should be introduced into all undergraduate curricula. This is of special importance in countries where smoking is one the increase and where governmental actions on smoking control are inadequate in comparison with the marketing efforts of powerful multinational tobacco companies. Considering the magnitude of smoking as a global health problem, it is the very least that medical educators should do in combating this pandemic.