I also did two years of general surgery training, and then went back into general practice. Now people can go to the drugstore and buy nicotine gum, which we used to have to prescribe. People also can get information on the Internet. You can get the hard data, the suggestions and the ideas. So outside of prescription medicines and counseling, the doctor isn't really involved in getting patients off smoking.
Patients can do much more on their own now to get it started.
And certainly the message is out there. No one alive today with any sense at all can say that they haven't heard that smoking is not good. Getting people to change their lifestyles - that's the most challenging and hardest thing to do. It may be an addiction or a habit, but it becomes a part of their lifestyle that needs to be changed. The people who need to quit the most are unfortunately the ones that are already so deep into it, they probably see no way out - like the person who has had lung cancer or advanced emphysema or asthma and still continues to smoke.