Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Volume 13, Number 6 (June 2011) 504–505 504 doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntr052 Advance Access published on March 29, 2011 © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com We subscribed to Guglielmo’s conviction that in order to engage pharmacists’ active participation in smoking cessation management, it entails augmenting pharmacists’ (both hospital and community pharmacists) integration into the defined net- work of health care providers and allowing pharmacists access to smokers’ medical records (Guglielmo, 2010). This will incul- cate a sense of ethical responsibility in managing the smoker as a whole rather than just isolating and managing the smoking cessation fraction. Active interactions among pharmacists and constant communications between other health care providers are central in assisting smokers to quit smoking and facilitates seamless transition from hospital settings to community set- tings or vice versa focusing on optimal patient care. Efforts must be made by both the health policy makers and the professional organizations to increase awareness and recog- nition of other health care providers on pharmacist’s role in smoking cessation. On the other hand, pharmacists must shed the mantle of conventional dispensing and customary counsel- ing of smoking cessation pharmacotherapy, moving away from the comfortable age-old definition of pharmacist. Since smoking constitutes a behavioral and addiction problem, pharmacists must approach smoking cessation in a multifaceted manner. Additional soft skills including behavioral and psycho- logical counseling must be honed in order to keep abreast in the behavioral aspect of smoking cessation management (Michie, Churchill, & West, 2011). Academic curricula must undergo re- vamp to adequately and pragmatically prepare pharmacists in assisting smokers to quit. The role of managing smoking cessation is no longer solely thrust upon medical practitioners anymore; other underutilized health care providers such as pharmacists must rise up to the expectation and be positioned to effectively assist smokers to quit. The health care system’s infrastructure, however, must be supportive and pharmacist friendly in order for pharmacist to effectively exercise what they have been trained for. Getting smokers to quit is and should be the sole priority for each health care provider. We must not miss the wood for the trees. Many studies have exemplified the value-added impact of pharmacist delivery in smoking cessation services (Dent, Harris, & Noonan, 2007; Zillich, Ryan, Adams, Yeager, & Farris, 2002). Having the underutilized pharmacist deployed in assisting smokers to quit will enable medical practitioners to concentrate more on their demanding area of work. Currently, the growing presence of pharmacists is well recognized by society and fellow health professionals alike. Accordingly, this augurs well in en- suring that each patient receives optimal pharmaceutical care in all aspects of disease(s) prevention and management. Pharma- cists in some parts of the world, however, seemed reluctant and inadequately primed to undertake the delivery of smoking ces- sation services. Hence, they are underutilized and reap little success in this matter. In Malaysia, for instance, a quit rate of 35.4% was reported for the nonpharmacist-managed Quit Smoking Clinics (Wee, West, Bulgiba, & Shahab, 2010). Only a dismal 3.1% quit rate was achieved in the pharmacist-managed Quit Smoking Clinics (Melaka Hospital, 2010). Not only the figure contrasted signifi- cantly as reported by Wee et al., it also lagged far behind the esti- mates of at least 10%, attained in pharmacist-managed smoking cessation programmes in other countries (Dent et al., 2007). Generally, pharmacists’ reluctance in embracing smoking cessation services is attributed to many factors. On the whole, the current health care system affords scant recognition to pharma- cist’s role in managing smoking cessation services and thus is observed to be unappealing to pharmacists. Among pharmacists per se, smoking cessation services is entrusted to the community pharmacists who then relegated it in favor of more “popular” and “comfortable” disease management, such as diabetes melli- tus and hypertension. Collectively, low health care system’s rec- ognition to pharmacist’s role, pharmacist unenthusiastic interest, compartmentalization of smoking cessation delivery among pharmacists, further compounded by the intricacy of smoking cessation management; these have been loosely translated to the pharmacist’s perfunctory role in assisting smokers to quit. Letter Challenges of Pharmacist-Managed Smoking Cessation Services—A Viewpoint Mei Lin Lee, B.Pharm., 1,2 Mohamed Azmi Hassali, Ph.D., 2 Asrul Akmal Shafie, Ph.D., 2 & Abdol Malek Abd Aziz, M.Sc., Clin.Pharm. 3 1 Ayer Keroh Health Clinic, Melaka Tengah District Health Office, Ministry of Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2 Discipline of Social & Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia 3 Department of Pharmacy, Melaka Hospital, Melaka, Malaysia Corresponding Author: Mei Lin Lee, B.Pharm., Discipline of Social & Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia. Telephone: +604-6534085; Fax: +604-6570017; E-mail: lmei_lin@yahoo.com Received January 24, 2011; accepted February 28, 2011 at Universiti Sains Malaysia on June 6, 2011 ntr.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from