For Resident, Tar Wars Dictated Specialty Choice

Grade school -- that's when family medicine resident Kelly McMullen, M.D., of Denver had one of her earliest brushes with family medicine. She entered -- and won -- one of the first poster contests sponsored by Tar Wars, the tobacco-free education program that now is an AAFP initiative.

In this audio interview at the 2006 National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students Aug. 2 in Kansas City, Mo., McMullen has an epiphany about the way that poster contest influences her family medicine practice today. "It hadn't occurred to me until just now that I probably talk about smoking with every patient that I see," McMullen says in the interview. "But I definitely do, because it has an impact on everyone in the household, not just on the person who is smoking."

"Wow, that's kind of funny!" she adds. "It does play a big role in my practice."