Read the full story, published by the Geisel School of Medicine.
Over the next year, Dartmouth researchers will carry out a pilot study to determine if a new standardized protocol can help smokers with vascular disease quit smoking. The trial will be led by Philip Goodney, an assistant professor of surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine and a researcher with The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and Emily Spangler, a resident in vascular surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. They were recently awarded a grant of $100,000 from the Society for Vascular Surgery to carry out the study.
“Patients who have vascular problems with blockages in their blood vessels commonly get those blockages because of cigarette smoking,” Goodney says. “So trying to get patients to quit smoking is an important part of our job.”
Previous research has found that vascular procedures have better outcomes when patients do not smoke, but the type and quality of smoking cessation counseling varies significantly from one physician to another. “Some physicians may spend a lot of time counseling patients; others don’t offer as much discussion,” Goodney says.
Goodney hopes that “the systematic delivery of smoking cessation advice can increase the likelihood that the patient will be successful in quitting smoking.”
