Since UW-CTRI’s inception in 1992, Center staff members have served as guest lecturers and expert resources for faculty and students at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). Now, UW-CTRI is working with SMPH to formalize this educational program. Center staff will regularly be available and will track educational efforts on campus. Jess Cook and Megan Piper have scanned the current SMPH curricula for areas where the tobacco-treatment education could use a booster shot from UW-CTRI staff.

One area is the UW Integrated Case Curriculum, where medical students visit an emergency room, meet patients, and afterward discuss presenting cases and focus on the public-health issues or the bigger picture issues for why the patient is in the ER. They’ll discuss in a classroom setting scenarios such as a patient who has a severe asthma attack because she’s not taking preventive medications and there is a smoker in the home. On Sept. 30, Jess, Megan, and Kate Kobinsky will meet with second-year UW medical students to discuss treatment of tobacco dependence and referrals to the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line.