Polson doctor receives honor for anti-smoking education
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POLSON – The fifth-grade classes at the Polson Middle School gathered on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate and congratulate Dr. Cara Harrop for her 15 years of dedication to delivering an anti-smoking message to students in the Mission Valley.
“We are fortunate to have someone to come and give of her time for free for the last 15 years. That’s quite an accomplishment,” said award presenter Bob Mazurek.
Mazurek told more than 60 students assembled in the middle school’s lunchroom that he had sat down and figured out that in the last 15 years Harrop has spoken to more than 5,000 Lake County fifth graders about the dangers of tobacco use.
Harrop, a family physician at PureHealth DPC - a direct primary care clinic in Polson, said she was humbled to known she had made such an impact on the children in Lake County.
“It was an honor to be recognized for actively promoting health in our community outside of the exam room,” Harrop later said. “But at the end of the day, it is what family medicine is all about: engaging with communities to achieve our best lives. I look forward to continue to be involved in efforts to educate our community.”
Tar Wars, the anti-smoking campaign Harrop is a part of, is now in its third decade. Dr. Jeff Cain, M.D., of Denver, and health educator Glenna Pember, P.A., developed the program as a way to educate fourth and fifth-grade students throughout the country about the dangers and negative consequences of tobacco use, including vapor cigarettes and chewing tobacco. The students learn, among other things, how smoking impairs their ability to play sports, how much it costs to use tobacco and the benefits of being tobacco free.
“Jeff did his family medicine residency in Colorado, down the road from where I did mine, so I became acquainted with the program while I was a resident in the late '90s,” Harrop said of how she became associated with the Tar Wars program. “I have essentially been doing the Tar Wars presentations for 20 years.”
When Harrop moved to Montana in 2003 she brought the program with her. “I met with the youth tobacco educator at the Lake County Health Department, then Teri Boettcher, and she helped me get connected with the schools and develop a dynamic, interactive program, unique to our valley.”
Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that every day in the United States more than 3,200 people younger than age 18 smoke their first cigarette. CDC statistics also show that the prevalence of cigarette smoking is highest among adolescents in rural areas. Adolescents living in rural areas begin smoking earlier in life, and daily smoking is more likely among youth in rural areas than in other regions of the country. Harrop is fighting to change that national trend.
“Every year, I am invigorated by the fifth graders and their openness to talking about the effect tobacco has had on their lives,” Harrop said.
The CDC predicts about one of every 13 Americans alive today, aged 17 or younger, will die early of a smoking-related illness if the statistics continue.
“In Montana, 1,600 people die of tobacco-related illness annually,” Harrop said. “Dozens of my own patients – over my 20-year career – have died prematurely as a consequence of tobacco use, and each death is personal to me. The US spends $170 billion dollars annually on tobacco-related illness, making tobacco prevention/cessation one of the most cost-effective interventions to reduce healthcare spending.”
