Pham J, et al. - Through a retrospective review of medical records of individuals admitted to the Royal Hobart Hospital with an acute exacerbation of COPD (n = 122), researchers assessed the prescribing of smoking cessation therapies (SCT) among hospital clinicians and recognized factors that could hamper the delivery of efficient interventions. Fewer individuals were started on efficient regimes like combination-NRT (n = 8) or varenicline (n = 2). In prescribing varenicline and buproprion, confidence was reported by only a small proportion of hospital doctors. Moreover, very few hospital doctors proclaimed ever getting legal training in SCT in comparison with non-medical hospital staff. In conclusion, the real-life hurdles in controlling nicotine dependence in hospitals ie, under-utilization of evidence-based pharmacotherapies, insufficient access to legal training for doctors and inadequate uptake of nurse-led smoking cessation services were reflected in this study. Furthermore, allowing restricted prescribing rights for specialized nurses could aid hospital clinicians to mitigate gaps in prevailing clinical practice.