Despite all of the technology available to diagnose and treat lung cancer, lung cancer education and prevention remains a key priority to reducing and eliminating lung cancer. We offer the following programs:

Smoking Cessation

At the turn of the 20th century lung cancer was a rare disease… as was smoking. It is easy to lose sight of this information and what it implies. Lung cancer need rarely exist. It is barely endemic to the human condition. Tragically in the 21st century, lung cancer has become the most common cause of cancer deaths in both men and women. It is so common, that patients frequently diagnose it themselves, stopping smoking a few months before they present to the doctor because they know the symptoms all too well; the nightmare turns into reality.

We are in the middle of an epidemic, proceeding in slow motion; a slow but lethal progression of a preventable disease veiled in the cloud of advertising, habit and addiction.

The Margarita Camche Smoking Cessation Program of the St.Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital aims to reach every smoker in our community, providing the support and therapy that works.

Smokers need to hear the good news that they absolutely can succeed, that current therapy not only works but works well and prevents the very difficult withdrawal and cravings that were faced in the past. Equally, smokers need to be aware that they must succeed…that cancers form, that lung gets destroyed, that asthma is unmanageable that diabetes results in escalating vascular disease, blindness and renal failure, that stents clot and coronaries thrombose, that babies are born small and with danger of SIDS and with stopping smoking these processes undergo significant reversal.

How do we reach our community? We have found that a wide variety of approaches need to be used to reach a wide variety of people:

• Our hospital-based, specialized, smoking cessation clinic, sees approximately 200 patients per year, In a one-on-one encounter, we are able to focus on the stumbling blocks an individual faces in their efforts to stop smoking. A review of the patient’s medical conditions, if they have any, along with their family’s medical history, allows us to understand how smoking is affecting the patient’s current health as well as their risk factors for the future. We devise a plan to safely fit with the patients’s current conditions and medications. We utilize the techniques of behavioural modification along with the latest medications available.

• College students do not attend clinics, even if it is only across the street! We have found that our best success in approaching student smoking is “on the run”. Tables set up in the lobby of the John Jay College of Jurisprudence have counseled over 100 students in the last year and supplied them with free nicotine patches…between classes! With the help of the Stony-Wold Herbert Fund, we have student interns counseling their classmates , smokers themselves, or the family or friends of smokers, bringing a visible presence of the importance of smoking cessation to that community. Our efforts have begun at the City College of New York at a recent health fair where in one afternoon, we were able to counsel 25 individuals.

• 186 St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital employees have been reached with a drop in program at Employees Health Service…quick and to the point. Walk out with brief advice and a 6 week supply of the nicotine patch, supplied free by the NYC Department of Health. Free appointments are always available to come to the smoking cessation clinic itself.

• Patients who see their own practitioner, especially if they have a chronic illness, like heart disease, diabetes, psychiatric illness or HIV, don’t want to go to an additional clinic for help with their smoking. We have provided the training and support for physicians and nurses to provide smoking cessation effectively within their own practices. These include:

the medical house staff of St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital
the pulmonary and cardiology fellows of the hospital
the HIV physicians and caregivers
the psychiatric staff of the St Luke’s site

Medical students need to hear early on in their careers the how’s and why’s of smoking cessation and behavioral modification. Medical students from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons get hands on experience and training in our clinic and students of the Sophie Davis Medical College of the City College receive an introductory lecture on the approach.

We view smoking cessation as an urgent issue. We have ever improving tools and approaches. The newest medications are practically a guarantee of success. The biggest hurdle now is having the techniques to maintain that success.

We need to reach all the smokers in our community and let them know that help is available for this toughest of addictions and that they will succeed!

Click here for information about Smoking Cessation programs offered at the hospitals of Continuum Health Partners.