key: cord-0805109-aj522p8b
authors: van de Graaf, Robert C.
title: Smoking cessation counseling by physicians and dentists – Shouldn’t a cobbler stick to his last?
date: 2020-08-04
journal: Oral Oncol
DOI: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2020.104952
sha: 30c0eaec28dd507edc1ef9a6c6307d85499b2823
doc_id: 805109
cord_uid: aj522p8b

nan

Oral Oncology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oraloncology Letter to the editor Smoking cessation counseling by physicians and dentists -Shouldn't a cobbler stick to his last?

In their recent letter the authors state that "Universities and Health Professional Associations, especially Medical and Dental, should invest heavily in the training of health students in relation the perception, and smokers counseling" [1] . This seems even more urgent with the current COVID-19 pandemic which "may encourage smoking cessation, resulting in a greater number of patients who need counseling and guidance to quitting smoking" [1] . As they describe, medical and dental education programs in general lack training in basic addiction and lifestyle medicine skills and knowledge. To reduce the global pandemic of lifestyle related non-communicable diseases (NCD's) it is indeed crucial that lifestyle and addiction medicine basics become part of the general education of our future colleagues. A brief smoking cessation advice from a health care professional is for example a proven effective intervention. However, it is important to realise that besides basic smoking cessation counseling skills it is perhaps even more important to learn how to organise a regional network of addiction and lifestyle medicine specialists to which you can refer your smoking patients for further counseling. Once you have organised this netwrk you can more easily discuss smoking cessation or other suboptimal lifestyle behaviors with all of your patients, because then you know you will always be able to refer them for more intensive counseling when indicated. Physicians and dentists in training should therefore in addition to basic lifestyle and addiction medicine interventions (e.g. a brief smoking cessation advice) be trained in leadership skills to organise their referral network. I believe that a cobbler should above all stick to his last.

COVID-19, head and neck cancer, and the need of training of health students and practitioners regarding to tobacco control and patient counseling

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.