Students quit smoking with HUP program

Nursing junior Katie Wooten smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for six years. These days, she no longer fears being a hypocritical nurse. Wooten smoked her last cigarette on October 27. She accomplished this with the help of the Quit Smoking Program, which is associated with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Many others have successfully completed the program, according to Kathy Lindell, the group's coordinator and a Nursing School clinical instructor. The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center runs the Quit Smoking Program out of the pulmonary critical care division of HUP. The program is administered by Melissa Cohen, a pulmonary doctor, and respiratory therapists Bill Russell and Susanne Snedeker. Social Work graduate student Patricia Franklin, who quit smoking through the program, praised its leaders as "wonderful and really knowledgeable." According to Lindell, the program emphasizes group support and offers the nicotine patch for free. Wooten noted that any physician could have given her the patch, but the support system offered by the program was the "key" to her success. But Franklin emphasized the importance of the nicotine patch. "It's not worth it trying to quit without the patch," she said. A series of eight classes deals with topics that help smokers prepare for life without the cigarettes. Issues include the hazards of smoking, behavior modification, dieting and how to deal with stress. The group provides support and an open forum to discuss the challenges that people face while trying to quit. It allows participants to give each other advice. The program is available to both Penn students and those in the surrounding community, Lindell said. "[It's] great for people who say 'next time,' " said Engineering senior Sam Law, who also successfully completed the program. He added that the group is "an easy alternative for someone who's tried to quit." Opinions differed among program participants regarding how difficult it was to quit, but all agreed they felt it was a lot easier than it had been when they tried to stop smoking on their own. The program will run again this semester. The first meeting will be held at 5 p.m. today at Student Health Service.