Kathleen Lindell, a "certified smoking cessation instructor," is heading up the new Quit Smoking Program at Penn, an organization which integrates medical expertise and real-life experience in combatting smoking addiction on campus. Lindell, who is a nurse at the University Medical Center's Pulmonary and Critical Care Division, called smoking a "socially acceptable addiction," but stressed that only cocaine and heroine are more addicting than nicotine. The program consists of seven sessions held over four months, including behavioral and group therapy and nicotine patches or gum, she explained. Compliance with the service is checked regularly by analyzing exhaled air. Students may choose their own regiment for quitting -- options range from "going cold turkey" to progressing through various steps of withdrawal. The result of similar programs is 40 percent abstinence, according to Lindell. The program, which has been run by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania since January, is an off-shoot of a similar program at Geisinger Medical Center in Central Pennsylvania. The group has offered two programs in the past to the entire University community, and is now specifically targeting students, Lindell said. To counter the $5 billion spent each year by the tobacco industry, the program is trying to get Student Health to cover the $90 cost of the service, which is covered by only some insurance companies. The tobacco industry aims at the 18-20 age group, Lindell explained. Jared Ellman, a Medical student taking a year off after completing two years at the University's Medical School, acts as a liaison between the experts and the potential patients. "Since I was once a smoker and quit, [I] know the issues of people my age trying to quit," he explained. "The others have formal training but haven't experienced it themselves." Ellman is busy advertising in local papers and putting up posters throughout University City. He said he is aiming at students age 18-28 because that is when people usually begin to smoke or start to smoke habitually.
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