Physicians at T.J. Samson Community Hospital received a two-day lesson in smoking cessation Thursday and today through the hospital’s continuing education program.

Two doctors from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., visited the hospital to talk with physicians about new tools available and different strategies for helping their patients stop smoking.

Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the clinic, said himself and Dr. Michael V. Burke, treatment coordinator at the center, taught attendees about thinking of tobacco dependence as a chronic disorder, secondhand smoke issues, treating tobacco dependence in different patients and how to put their new knowledge to use in treating those patients.

“We went through the neurobiology of this,” Hurt said. “This is a brain disease, this isn’t just a habit. It changes the brain chemistry and it needs to be addressed to the patient that way. We went through the addiction so the physicians could understand that and that their patients are going to need to understand that as well.”

Burke added: “Physicians are good at treating chronic illnesses like asthma and diabetes and they can use those skills to treat tobacco addiction very successfully. They have to shift the paradigm to include that and treat it more like the other chronic illnesses they’re effective in treating.”

Burke and Hurt also spoke about using tools to understand what the patient is going through.

“You have to understand the patient’s perspective,” Burke said. “You have to understand the mind-set of someone who on one hand wants to stop smoking, but on the other, doesn’t want to stop smoking. They have to partner and build that patient’s focus and confidence so they can succeed.”

Hurt described the process as “motivational interviewing.”

“It’s about meeting the patient where the patient is and realizing that this is a process that may take time,” Hurt said. “The patient expects to be lectured to, made to feel badly about this and so using the concept of motivational interviewing really establishes that relationship that is important in going forward with treatment.”

The group was very responsive to the sessions, Hurt said.

“They were engaged and a lot of them knew more than they realized,” Hurt said. “They want to learn more about how to do this and how to incorporate it into their practice.”

“It’s great to see how enthused they are,” Burke added. “Because if a physician helps the patient to stop smoking, it saves the patient money, it saves our health care system a tremendous amount of money, it prevents illnesses, and it’s heartening to see them really excited about this.”

Hurt said that one way the community can help the local health care system help their patients is through public policy.

“We need to continue to work toward having smoke free workplaces because they help people to never start smoking, they help people who are trying to quit and they reduce smoking in people who are smoking,” Hurt said. “The same thing happens if we increase the prices of cigarettes. For the treaters, it’s really important for the workplace to be smoke free for their patients. There’s a much better chance of succeeding if that person is going back to work in a place where smoking is not allowed. If Louisville can do it, Lexington can do it and Paducah can do it, then Glasgow should be able to as well.”

The program on smoking cessation was made possible through an educational grant in the amount of $20,000 to provide activities that focus on introducing new tools to improve the screening, communications and treatment of adult smokers.