Purpose: The paper seeks to report data on cigarette smoking, anti-smoking practices, physicians' receipt of anti-smoking training, and the association between receipt of the training and anti-smoking practice among physicians in Wuhan, China. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were selected through the stratified random sampling method. The questionnaires were completed by the sampled physicians and the response rate of the survey was 98.1 percent. Findings: Among the total sample, 11 percent were current smokers. Significantly more male physicians than female physicians were current smokers (31.6 vs 0.9 percent, p less than 0.001). In total, 41 percent of physicians always or often asked patients about smoking habits, and 61 percent of them often advised patients to quit. Receiving anti-tobacco training significantly increased the likelihood for physicians to ask patients about smoking (odd ratio=2.55, p less than 0.001) and to advise patients against smoking (odd ratio=4.05, p less than 0.001) with and without controlling gender, age, education, type of hospital and medical services specialty. Practical implications: More effort should be devoted to training for physicians with focus on anti-smoking practice and smoking cessation counseling in addition to assist physicians themselves to quit smoking. Originality/value: The findings of this study update the data regarding cigarette smoking among physicians in Wuhan, China, and their practice of anti-tobacco counseling. It indicates that it is very important to provide the training regarding anti-smoking counseling among physicians. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)