FOCUS - DECEMBER 2018 43 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS: No more Cold Turkey! There’s help for smokers who are ready to QUIT Jane Ling’s mother was a long- time smoker. Sadly, she died of lung cancer in 2007. “There wasn’t a lot of information to help people quit smoking back then,” Jane commented. “There was no protocol.” Jane was motivated by her moth- er’s passing to devote her career as a pharmacist to establishing programs and teaching others how to help peo- ple kick the habit. “It takes a village to help someone quit smoking,” commented Jane, the Primary Care Pharmacist who runs the successful Smoking Cessation Program based on the Ottawa Model. The North Durham Family Health Team at Port Perry MedicalAssociates has offered it for the past five years. Quitting smoking on your own can be difficult, but you don’t have to go it alone, Jane says. There’s caring, pro- fessional assistance locally available from Jane and her colleague Primary Care Pharmacist Dr. Kara Phinney. “Supportive and non-judgmental,” they design individualized smok- ing cessation plans, free of charge, for the patients of doctors at Medical Associates of Port Perry. Seven hun- dred patients were enrolled in this program between November 2017 and November 2018. The quit rate for cold turkey is only 3 - 5%. Compare that to the Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation’s suc- cess rate of 56% after three months, and a one-year quit rate of 37%. “One of the lowest cost health care interventions is smoking cessation,” Jane pointed out. “And it has the most impact on your health.” Today, medical doctors, dentists, optometrists, and pharmacists are all being educated to employ the 3 As: Ask,Advise andAct, to provide guid- ance to people who can improve their health through smoking cessation. Smoke related diseases range from oral cancer to macular degeneration to lung and kidney cancers, heart problems, strokes, and more. Jane explained that it’s the combustion of smoking, plus the 4,000 chemicals including 80 known carcinogens in each cigarette, which are dangerous. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is safe, she pointed out. At the local smoking cessation clinic, a 26 day supply of NRT products is pro- vided free of charge. That includes nicotine gum, inhalers, patches and lozenges. The pharmacists can also prescribe other medications such as Champix, which are typically cov- ered by benefit plans. Jane stressed the need for deter- mining proper doses for each indi- vidual to optimize smoking cessation ...................... Please turn to page 44 North Durham Family Health Smoking Cessation Team, Jane Ling and Dr. Kara Phinney.