Alumnus advises students to quit smoking

By Marshall "Preacher" Brown '69

Brown with this trachyostoma patch.

While at Pacific for Homecoming 2013, I read your September 19th Index editorial a “Proposed ban on smoking on campus.” 

Your analogy to being “at home” at Pacific doesn’t ring true. “At home” you do not live in proximity to hundreds of unreleated people.

“At home” young people are subject to many seemingly arbitrary rules, among which almost certainly is “no smoking.”

Very few, if that many, college-aged smokers are “painfully aware” of the health risks they take by smoking. If they were, would they smoke? Smoking vs. drinking is a false comparison. Unless done alcoholically, the effects of drinking seldom linger more than a day; smoking almost inevitably becomes a long-term drug addiction and habit. Finally, even if smokers abide by location rules, friends and others still have to put up with “tobacco stink.”

I do not understand why a young person today would take up smoking. When I started, there were whispers about cancer (that went unheeded by “immortal youth”) and absurd claims smoking would stunt your growth; cigarettes in Oregon in 1965 were 22 cents a pack, less by the carton! Today, so much more is widely known about smoking’s serious, long term damage to health; at three dollars or more per pack, smoking’s up-front cost is obscenely expensive.

After a 20-plus year habit, I quit smoking in 1988. In 2002, I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and in October 2003, lost my larynx, thyroid gland and several lymph nodes, and I’m a lucky one: I’m still alive. I remember asking my oncologist why, if I had quit smoking 14 years earlier, cancer showed up now. “Cancer is very patient,” was all he said.

Hopefully, student smokers at Pacific have a habit far more easily broken than later in life. The proposed ban on smoking on campus is, I feel an opportunity for those who smoke to do the best thing they perhaps will ever do for themselves. Quit smoking. Seriously!

Brown '69 was Editor of The Pacific Index in 1968. This piece was originally submitted as a Letter to the Editor in November 2013. After a tour of duty in the Air Force, Brown worked in IT for 32 years and is now retired and living just north of Seattle. Pre-cancer, Brown was an avid rec cyclist -- he created Cascade Bicycle Club's "Ride Around Washington."

Four Facts that Could Save Your Life

By Rachael Burbank '09

Burbank before she stopped tanning

Tanning Fact #1:
People who use tanning beds once a month before the age of 35 increase their melanoma risk by 75%

I stood in line at a tanning salon for over an hour once because it was busy. It was three weeks before junior year prom. I sat in a white wicker love seat looking at Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat posters waiting for the sounds of popping door locks knowing my time was closer to get into a tanning bed. Everything inside Sunsational Tan was white: the wicker love seat, the counter girls’ hair, the hallway leading down to the rooms of tanning beds. It reminded me how pale I was, just like the color of the prom dress I begged my mom to get me. As I sat waiting, twenty or so girls gossiped about their prom dates and how their backless dresses couldn’t have tan lines. Then, silence as the counter girls announced the next victim. Lucky girl.

Tanning Fact #2:
Using a tanning bed for 20 minutes is equivalent to spending 1 – 3 hours at the beach with no sun protection at all. Tanning beds put out 3 – 6 times the amount of radiation given off by the sun.

Growing up on the shore of Cape Cod, I spent summers at the beach. I used baby oil like sunscreen, lathing up every other hour waiting to feel my skin tense up to a crisp. My girlfriends and I would set up on the beach sometimes as early as 9 a.m. and position our chairs like a sundial but moving every hour to keep facing the sun's UV rays straight on. I never wanted to be the first one to leave the beach. So when I grew restless, I’d play volleyball or bocce ball making sure each patch of my skin was being caught by the sun while the rest of the girls proudly wore completely different shades from their front to their backs.

Tanning Fact #3:
Melanoma kills one person every hour. It is the second most common cancer for women aged 25-29. Rates for melanoma are increasing faster than nearly all other cancers.

Kohl receiving treatment

There was an hour on November 20, 2008 dedicated to Glenna Kohl; she was 26. Glenna was a vegetarian, she did yoga, hiked, jogged, and rowed regularly. She was just 5-foot-3 and 105 pounds, yet she was strong enough to work as a beach lifeguard five summers in a row only protecting her skin with SPF 4. To maintain her copper glow, Glenna booked time at tanning salons, baking under a sunlamp as often as once a week. As health-conscious as Glenna was, she didn't connect tanning with skin cancer, let alone it’s most deadly form, melanoma. Let alone at 22 years old.

Read more: Tanning Dangers - Protect Yourself Against Skin Cancer - Cosmopolitan

Tanning Fact #4:
For most people, 5 – 10 minutes of unprotected sun 2 – 3 times a week is enough to help your skin make Vitamin D, which is essential for your health. Getting more sun won’t increase your Vitamin D level, but it will increase your risk of skin cancer. Vitamin D also comes from orange juice, milk, fish and supplements.

I bought a sunhat. No, not just celebrities wear them. My tanned friends probably get anxious when we go to the beach now because I pass around SPF 30 and make sure each of them applies it. Then I do it again 2-3 hours later, like their mom. I’m not taking the risk. I have a lot of moles on my skin and it’s difficult to watch them all and see if they change size, shape and color. I may have put my skin in danger when I was younger, but I wasn’t aware when I was 16 years old. Now at 25, I’m not ashamed of saving myself and my friends from sunburns or skin damage. I’m proud. Now my friends send me messages excited to tell me they wore sunscreen and when they don't, they warn me of their sunburns because they know I'll lecture them. And I'm proud my friends are as aware as I am of sun safety practices.

May is Melanoma Awareness Month but throughout the entire year, The Glenna Kohl Fund for Hope raising awareness to the dangers of melanoma and the importance of early detection and prevention of this deadly disease. 

Burbank '09 volunteers as the social media manger for The Glenna Kohl Fund for Hope. Follow her at @GlennasFund or facebook.com/glennasfund. She is also the Alumni Relations Coordinator at Pacific University.

Pharmacy Graduate Uses His Skills to Give Back

Payam Ghorbani, Pharm.D. '11

                                                       The mission of the Tati Tati Foundation is to provide food, educational material, and support to those in need of these services, as well as information regarding graduate programs, career choices, and many other educational disciplines.

Tati Tati fosters learning and academic excellence by working with a variety of individuals. Each of these individuals come from a different cultural and career background, which makes our members so valuable. Our sole purpose is to create a safe, fulfilling, and academically enriching environment for students.

Similar to many others in my profession, I have always wanted to do what I could to help people. I considered every career choice possible that I felt would be rewarding to me, but due to an unfortunate illness that occurred in my family, I was drawn towards the healthcare profession.  Suddenly, my goals were clear to me, and I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish.



Not long ago, a great opportunity was presented to me. My elder sister, who was at the time completing her rotations in Domincan Republic suggested a community service project for us to participate in. The project involved providing patient assistance and helping out in her hospital in Dominican Republic. Due to the poverty level in the city she was in, an extra set of hands within the hospital could be quite helpful. The experience was rich and rewarding, and only motivated me even more.

In 2009, my siblings and I, along with our dedicated friends founded Tati Tati Foundation meaning step by step. We had a vision of what we wanted this organization to represent. It was to provide healthcare and educational assistance to patients and also continue to educate the next generation of healthcare providers as they are our future. Every step we take makes a difference, even if it’s just one. Step by step, and hand in hand, we have continued with this journey and I am honored to have worked with such great individuals.

I’d like to take the rest of this blog post, to thank the people that made this dream come true--Aram Ghorbani, Pharm.D. Candidate; Elham Ghorbani, M.D.; Raman Dadayan, Pharm.D.; Pejman Mesdaghi, Pharm.D.; Tu Nguyen, Pharm.D.; Raphael Resto Vazquez, M.D.; Samuel martinez Jimenez, M.D.; Ebuwa Joy Obaski, M.D. Candidate.
 www.tatitati.org