To the Editor: In their recent study, Frolkis and colleagues1 attempt to determine by chart review how often patients with acute myocardial infarction are counseled to quit smoking and encouraged to exercise. They acknowledge that if no such counseling nor encouragement is documented in the chart, the study assumes none was done. Certainly a patient hospitalized with an acute infarction is unusually likely to be amenable to the idea of quitting smoking and ought to be so encouraged. But many patients are still not interested in quitting. In those cases, most doctors probably do not document a fruitless attempt at counseling in the chart. Why commemorate a waste of breath with a waste of ink? Frolkis and colleagues suggest doing the …