Education

Dr. Tindle and ViTAL Center faculty member mentor trainees at the predoctoral, post-doctoral, and faculty level who are pursuing careers related to clinical research. In addition, ViTAL has launched educational campaigns across the medical center, including a VUMC-wide initiative to increase delivery of proven quit aids by hospital staff, including nurses and physicians. This campaign includes didactic lectures and leverages IT tools including a tobacco treatment order set and quick-reference ID badge cards to encourage greater prescribing of FDA approved smoking cessation medications and making referrals to the state quitline. ViTAL has spearheaded educational efforts related to new Joint Commission (JC) tobacco measures (now required by CMS) for the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital. This quality improvement-driven clinical effort assists nursing staff, Addiction Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine postdoctoral fellows, and other providers to deliver and document care in order to satisfy the CMS requirements and improve care. TTS counselors serve as ambassadors for change across the clinical enterprise, including the adoption of system-wide improved methods to treat tobacco use and proactively reaching out to other staff, faculty, and trainees as appropriate in order to help demonstrate state-of-the-art tobacco treatment. Another example of serving as a Tobacco Control ambassador is fielding questions from faculty, staff, and trainees in an enthusiastic and scholarly manner, using up-to-date information from the medical literature to support treatment decisions and educate peers. These educational projects also offer excellent opportunities for trainees to engage in clinical research. 

 

Tobacco-Related Resources

  • Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services cover 100 million people through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. To achieve a high quality health care system, they aim for better care at lower costs and improved health. CMS strives to enable Americans to have access to coverage, better care, and improved health.

  • North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC) is an international, non-profit membership organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. NAQC seeks to promote evidence-based quitline services across diverse communities in North America. 

    Quitlines are telephone-based tobacco cessation services that help tobacco users quit. Today, residents in all 10 provinces and two territories in Canada, Mexico, and all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the District of Columbia have access to quitline services. 

  • The Tennessee Tobacco QuitLine is a toll-free telephone service that provides personalized support for Tennesseans who want to quit smoking or chewing tobacco.

  • Smokefree.gov is intended to help you or someone you care about quit smoking.
    Different people need different resources as they try to quit smoking cigarettes. The information and professional assistance available on this website can help to support both your immediate and long-term needs as you become, and remain, a non-smoker.

  • SmokefreeTXT is a free texting service run by Smokefree.gov which offers quit smoking assistance and counseling.

  • quitSTART is a phone application, originally designed for teens, that takes smoking history information and provides individually tailored tips, inspiration, and challenges to help one become smoke free and live a healthier life.

  • Tobacco Free Kids is a leading force in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its deadly toll in the United States and around the world. They work to save lives by advocating for public policies that prevent kids from smoking, help smokers quit and protect everyone from secondhand smoke.

  • Truth Initiative is America's largest nonprofit public health organization committed to making tobacco use and nicotine addiction a thing of the past.

  • EX Program is a free guide to help you on your journey to quit smoking, vaping, and tobacco. EX Program is developed by Truth Initiative® in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center. Truth Initiative is America's largest nonprofit public health organization committed to making tobacco use and nicotine addiction a thing of the past. Mayo Clinic is the world's largest integrated, not-for-profit medical group practice. The Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center provides top-quality, evidence-based care for tobacco and nicotine dependence.

  • Quit Assist offers assistance in planning, managing, and maintaining a quit attempt, including setting a quit date, identifying triggers and other barriers, and recruiting support from friends and family.

  • The CDC's Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) works to protect the public's health from the harmful effects of tobacco use. OSH works in partnership with organizations and leaders at every level to promote tobacco control interventions. Key activities aim to reduce tobacco-related health disparities, death, and disease.

  • The first report of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health was released in 1964. It was a landmark first step to diminish the impact of tobacco use on the health of the American people. Over the course of more than 40 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health has been responsible for 34 reports on the health consequences of smoking.

  • The Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD) is an organization of nicotine tobacco treatment specialists and researchers dedicated to the promotion of and increased access to evidence-based tobacco treatment for the tobacco user. ATTUD has international reach, with members in the U.S., Canada, the UK and nearly two dozen other countries.