The smoking habits of New Zealand doctors: a review after ten years.

A second survey of New Zealand doctors' smoking habits in 1972 elicited an 83 percent response from 3113 doctors. 38.5 percent had never smoked compared with 23.8 percent in a 1963 survey; 29.2 had given up smoking, and 33.3 percent still smoked. Only 21.3 percent smoked cigarettes compared with 35.3 percent in 1963. There has been a sustantial increase in non-smokers among recent graduates. Both sexes now smoke cigarettes less frequently but pipe and cigar smoking by male doctors has risen sharply. Obstetricians smoke cigarettes more often than other groups of doctors, while pathologists, medical administrators and academics smoke the least. Giving up smoking was not difficult for most former smokers except for the heavy smokers who now make up most of the persistent smoker group.