A 3-hour seminar on tobacco was introduced to second year (pre-clinical) medical students in Hong Kong in 1994. The differences in knowledge and attitudes were measured by a self-administered and anonymous questionnaire with 14 items before the seminar (n = 145), and again 2 weeks after the seminar (n = 151). The students also completed an evaluation form at the end of the seminar. Before the seminar, the students were most deficient in their knowledge on the exact magnitude of the risks from smoking and on the risks from smoking relative to the risks from air pollution and asbestos. After the seminar, their knowledge increased significantly (P < 0.005). As for attitudes, in the pre-test 35% strongly agreed that tobacco advertising should be completely banned, and 50% did so in the post-test (P = 0.02). The corresponding figures for banning of all forms of tobacco promotion were 26% and 43% (P < 0.005). In the pre-test, one in four students strongly disagreed that doctor's advice to their patients to stop smoking is totally ineffective, with this proportion increasing to 70% in the post-test (P < 0.005). The majority of the students stated that the seminar was useful. The preclinical medical curriculum should, at the very least, include a tobacco seminar. Our survey shows that it is effective in improving students' knowledge and attitudes on tobacco control.

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Scoliosis screening is important for timely initiation of brace treatment to mitigate curve progression in skeletally immature children. Scoliosis screening programs frequently include the protocol of referring children screened positive with Scoliometer and Moiré Topography for confirmatory standard radiography. Despite being highly sensitive (88%) for detecting those who require specialist referral, the screening program was found to have more than 50% false positive rate that leads to unnecessary radiation exposure. Radiation-free ultrasound has been reported to be reliable for quantitative assessment of scoliosis curves. The aim of this prospective diagnostic accuracy study was to determine the accuracy of ultrasound in determining the referral status for children initially screened positive for scoliosis. 442 schoolchildren with a mean Cobb angle of 14.0 ± 6.6° were recruited. Using x-ray as the gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound in predicting the correct referral status were 92.3% and 51.6% respectively. ROC curve analysis revealed an area under curve of 0.735 for ultrasound alone and 0.832 for ultrasound plus scoliometer measurement. The finding provided strong evidences on the accuracy of ultrasound in determining the referral status that could result in more than 50% reduction of unnecessary radiation exposure for children undergoing scoliosis screening.