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Madilyn Wilson winner of PCH anti-vaping poster contest
Tzouanakis Intermediate School student Madilyn Wilson was announced as the winner of Putnam County Hospital’s recent anti-vaping poster contest.
The contest was run across all the elementary schools in the county. Submissions were featured on social media platforms where followers could vote on their favorite poster.
Wilson’s poster will be created into foam board posters to be distributed and displayed by businesses in the community.
Vaping is considered unsafe for kids, teens and young adults. Most vapes contain nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive and can harm to adolescent brain development, which continues into the early-to-mid-20s. Young people who use e-cigarettes may be more likely to smoke cigarettes in the future.
The hospital offers a Kick It program for adults and teens. The program offers patients one-on-one cessation counseling that is based on best-practice guidelines from the CDC and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Employees can self-refer, and patients are referred from primary care or specialty care to work with a tobacco treatment specialist at the hospital. Two specialists have been trained in motivational interviewing, pharmacotherapy strategies and tobacco treatment interventions.
Patients meet with a specialist for a four-week session, with the intent of setting a quit day at the end of the sessions or before. Staff are available for telephone and off-site support for patients during business hours.
For more information on the Kick It program, visit https://www.pchosp.org/in-house-tobacco-cessation.