title: The practices of general and subspecialty internists in counseling about smoking and exercise.
abstract: We compared the practices of subspecialists and general internists in counseling about smoking and exercise, using data from a study of recent graduates of United States training programs in internal medicine. Information on the characteristics of physicians and their clinical practices was obtained from self-report questionnaires. The internists most likely to counsel smokers regardless of the presence or absence of diseases associated with smoking are cardiologists, pulmonary specialists, nephrologists, and generalists trained in a primary care residency funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or Health Resources Administration. Most internists practice tertiary prevention by counseling a high percentage of smokers with heart or lung disease. Rheumatologists counsel a higher percentage of all patients with poor exercise habits but a lower percentage of such patients with heart disease than do other internists. The differences in counseling related to training are not explained by different levels of involvement as a primary care physician. Rather, these differences appear to reflect training and subspecialty-specific priorities for counseling.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine; D005082:Physical Exertion; D010819:Physician's Role; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D013038:Specialization; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires