The White Falcon - 07.05.1993, Page 6

U. S. Naval Hospital, Keflavik takes lead
in helping smokers quit the habit 0
Story and photos by
J02 Carlos Qongioanni
To some people, the idea of having a smoke
free Navy by the year 2,000 sounds a bit far-
fetched. However, if the current success rate
of a pilot program at U. S. Naval Hospital,
Keflavik is an indication, any thing is pos-
sible.
Twenty-nine service members and one
spouse recently volunteered to participate in
a Tobacco Dependency Study Group, which
is testing the effectiveness of using a nicotine
patch to help quit smoking. According to LT
Joseph Biron, Head of the Mental Health De-
partment, Naval Hospital Keflavik, an unbe-
lievable 93 percent of the class has remained
smoke free since their quitting date over a
month ago.
“We ’re trying to demonstrate that the patch
program is worthwhile... that people will quit
and stay quit with this program,” said Biron.
“When we started, we looked for the hardest-
core group of smokers we could find. We did
a survey and chose the ones who had been
smoking the longest amount of years... the
ones who had a cigarette in their hand before
they had their feet out of bed heading to the
bathroom.”
According to Biron, he doesn’t know of
any other military hospital that uses the patch.
The cost is the major
reason why. A three-
month supply of
patches for a group
of 30 people will cost
approximately
$10,000. “But that’s
nothing compared to
what it would cost to
treat someone with
emphysema,” said
Biron.
The majority of
participants in the
study group have
smoked for 15 or
more years and all
have tried to quit at
one time or another,
but without success.
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Mavis Stinus is one of 30 participants attending the Tobacco Depend-
ency Study Group.
“We looked for the hardest-
core smokers... the ones who
had a cigarette in their hand
before they had their feet out
of bed."
“Smoking embarrasses me, because I’m a
slave to it,” said OTA1 Cynthia Kilpatrii
who started smoking 22 years ago. “I’m hi
trying to figure out why I’m smoking.
IS1 Kent Christofferson started smoking
27 years ago when he was 10. “Because of
health reasons, I’mready to quit,” said Christ-
offerson. “I heard about the patch and was
curious about it, so I decided to try it out.”
The study group was originally scheduled
to meet twice a week for six sessions for in
depth classroom discussions and instructions
on tobacco use. However, because of the
support and motivation gained from the class-
room time, the group members decided to
continue to meet twice a week until the three
months of patch use is completed.
“Statistics for the patch are better than
quitting cold turkey,” said Biron. The with-
drawal symptoms normally associated with
quitting smoking are not present. The patch
takes the edge off. If this pilot program
works, we’d like to expand it to all military
hospitals.”
U. S. Naval Hospital Keflavikplans to start
their next class sometime in June or July.
Call ext. 3322 for more information.
41
LT Joseph Biron teaches about the ill effects of smoking during a recent class workshop.
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