EDUCATION. Students from the degree programmes in pharmacy, physiotherapy, medicine, nursing and dentistry gathered on February 9 at the cinema Draken for a full day of interprofessional learning about human rights.
The program included both lectures and group discussions: During the session before lunch a lecture was held by Naiti part Sante, a lawyer specializing in human rights, and by Adriaan van Es from the organization IFHHRO. The afternoon was devoted to group discussion where students from different programs were mixed, and discussed human rights issues with each other.
Good arrangement
The medical student Simon Telg thought it was a good program with two lectures:
– The first was more comprehensive, an overview of what human rights are. The second lecture took up more specific examples, says Simon.
Naiti part Sante started the day with a lecture on what human rights mean. After a break and a chance for the audience to stretch their legs in the cinema’s foyer, students and teachers sat down again in the red plush armchairs to listen to Adriaan van Es.
Difficult in practice
Adriaan comes from the organization IFHHRO, representing the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations. In the lecture he addressed, among other things, the difference between the right to healthcare and the right to health and what it is to view care and health from a human rights perspective. A key message was that even though we think that everyone has the right to health, it can be difficult to live up to. In Sweden, for example, a discussion of how much and to what extent we should provide care to undocumented immigrants, and whose responsibility this is. Simon’s fellow student Emelie Lindsköld are on the same track as Adriaan:
– It is important to also consider this with a critical eye. Human Rights sounds very good but it is not always so good in practice. We are working with health care and health must not be blind to these kinds of issues, I think that could easily happen, says Emelie.
Emelie, who has studied human rights for three years before joining the medical program, looks forward to working practically with what she previously studied in theory. Simon agrees, although there were several other reasons why he applied to medical program:
– Human rights are part of it, but above all, I want to help people. And it is a challenge to be a doctor, it is not always an easy profession, says Simon.
“We depend on each other”
This full-day on human rights was organized by the Committee for Interprofessional Learning, which is part of the Education Council at the Sahlgrenska Academy. Inter-professional learning means that students from various programs that will work in different professions are learn and cooperate with eachother. “I think it’s good that we meet students from the other programs during this day. We depend on each other and work in the same health care system”, says Emelie. “Yes, and the nurses are those who have the most contact with patients, so they too have much responsibility for human rights”, says Simon. In the afternoon, discussions continued about what the various professions can contribute to satisfy the human right to good health.
Read more about the preparations for the day and the continued work on human rights by the Committee for Interprofessional Learning.
TEXT AND PHOTO: PONTUS SUNDÉN
