I am a member of the Students Working Against Tobacco advocacy group. It involves going out to community schools to give presentations to students on the effects that smoking has on the body. The hope is that educating the students early on will provide an opportunity for them to make an informed decision to not start smoking in the future.

The presentations are done in a fun and informal manner and the students are always very responsive and interactive. I am always hoping that the students really gain an appreciation of the message we are trying to convey to them about the dangers of starting smoking. It is also a great excuse to do something different outside of school and studying and to feel like I am able to make a difference in the community in some small way.

The most recent presentation I gave, with another member of the group, was to 160 grade 6 students. Despite presenting to a fairly large group, the presentation went well and the students seemed interested throughout the talk. At the end of the presentation, some students came up to ask us a few additional questions. One boy came over to ask me about the ways to stop smoking. We do not address that issue in our presentation and I personally do not have much background information on that issue so I only shared with him a small amount of information that I knew. He then began to share with me that his mom smokes and he really wants her to stop. He opened up his clipboard and showed me all the notes that he had written down during our presentation so he could go home and show his mom all the effects that smoking can have on the body. This boy made me realize that we might not only be having an effect on the kids who were in the audience during the presentation, but that they might go home and relay the information to their family and friends. I realized that advocating for a healthy lifestyle and disease prevention can have a significant impact on the lives of many people if the message can be carried out to others. I believe that many people are looking for ways to improve their lives, but they do not always know how to access or find the information, as was likely the case with the boy who wanted his mom to stop smoking. He had clearly thought about it before, but did not have the right information to tell his mom. Our presentation gave him some tools and knowledge to share with his mom on how she can change her life and improve her health. There are many people who smoke, and have probably heard repeatedly from their doctors to stop smoking. Some patients often need to hear the information in a different way rather than just being told by the doctor to quit. As future physicians, we will need to try other techniques to provide our patients with the right skills and facts so that they feel empowered to take charge of their own health.