The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has released four of five planned podcasts in its "Ask the Expert" tobacco cessation podcast series. The podcasts are part of the Academy's Ask and Act tobacco cessation program, which encourages family physicians to ask all patients about tobacco use and then act to help them quit.

Each of the brief audio interviews with clinical content experts covers a specific tobacco-related topic.

• New Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guidelines (11:16-minute MP3 file) Carlos Jaén, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of family and community medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, answers questions about new clinical practice guidelines on treating tobacco use and dependence produced by the U.S. Public Health Service and outlines 10 key practice recommendations. Jaén served as vice chair of the expert panel that developed the guidelines and is a member of the AAFP Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee.
  
  
• Pharmacotherapy for Tobacco Dependence (11:58-minute MP3 file) Thomas Houston, M.D., of Dublin, Ohio, discusses pharmacotherapy for tobacco dependence, who should receive it and how it integrates with counseling. Houston is director of nicotine dependence programs at the not-for-profit regional health system OhioHealth and a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at Ohio State University, Columbus. He also is a member of both the AAFP Commission on Health of the Public and the Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee.
  
  
• Tobacco Cessation Quitlines (13:36-minute MP3 file) Tim McAfee, M.D., of Seattle, explains what happens when patients call a tobacco cessation quitline. McAfee is chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical and behavioral sciences at Free & Clear, a Seattle-based provider of integrated web- and phone-based cognitive behavioral coaching for tobacco cessation. He also is associate professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington there.
  
  
• How to Provide Tobacco Cessation Treatment to Patients with Mental Illness (7:43-minute MP3 file) Julie Wood, M.D., M.P.H., of Lee's Summit, Mo., talks about how to provide smoking cessation resources and treatment for patients with mental illness, a population that is often underserved. Wood is associate director at Research Family Medicine Residency Program in Kansas City, Mo., and chair of the AAFP Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee. She also is senior adviser to the Academy's Tar Wars Advisory Committee and a member of the Commission on Health of the Public.
  
  
• Payment for Tobacco Cessation Treatment (This podcast is scheduled to be released later this month.) Thomas Weida, M.D., of Hershey, Pa., offers tips on billing for tobacco cessation treatment. Weida is a professor and clinician at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and medical director for the University Physicians Group. He also is speaker of the AAFP Congress of Delegates and a member of the Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee.

You can download and listen to the podcasts on your computer or MP3 player. As part of the Ask and Act initiative, the podcast series is supported in part by the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.