Sponsorship from the German Lung Foundation
We are very grateful to and proud to welcome The German Lung Foundation. as the newest sponsor in our network.
The German Lung Foundation will focus on three key areas with its substantial funding contribution:
- Professional training for medical students using evidence- based methods to help their patients quit smoking
11 faculties of medicine are currently training group leaders from EAT as well as their own students in techniques to help patients quit smoking on a voluntary basis. More than 30% of our future patients are smokers, over 70% of them want to quit and only 3-5% of them are successful without outside help and support. According to medical guidelines, doctors are obliged to help their patients in their attempts to quit smoking. Studies show, however, that this help is generally unavailable mainly due to a lack of or nonexistent training on the subject during medical studies. The German Lung Foundation, through its sponsorship, is making it possible to train group leaders to lecture on the subject so that training can take place, which will result in a positive and sustainable change in the perceptions, knowledge and abilities of medical students in this area. Every medical student who participates will be better equipped in their later medical careers to help their thousands of patients, who smoke, with their attempts to give up smoking. In addition, the German Lung Foundation will secure the future sustainability of the training program by financially compensating those who lecture on the subject.
- Raising awareness among German Medical Students on the importance of quitting smoking.
Supporting smokers in their attempts to quit smoking is seen as boring and irrelevant by many German medical students. It’s difficult to get students to engage with this issue as public opinion is influenced less through specialist publications and more through mass advertising by the tobacco industry. Together with the Frankfurt company Nutcracker Concepts, a professional video is being produced which will focus on the importance of quitting smoking and the facts surrounding it. The video is intended not just to motivate our students but also to raise awareness of this marginalized issue amongst our many colleagues in the world of medicine. German Lung Foundation is also generously paying for the production costs.
- Preventative Education for High School Student Carried out by Medical Students.
With their sponsorship, the German Lung Foundation ensures the sustainability of the project. The students form a structure, which helps us to recruit successors for them in the form of group leaders and mentors for school visits. Our methods for educating high school students (e.g. using our app Smokerface) are based on science and effective.
We would like to thank those who sponsored us from the bottom of our hearts and are looking forward to many successful years of working together!