EDUCATION. In early November Sahlgrenska Academy will be visited by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH), Oxford, a leader in integrating sustainability into healthcare. All employees interested in learning more about the climate impact of health care are invited to seminars and workshops which will also provide practical tips on how to incorporate sustainability in education and practice.
At a lunch seminar ‘Introduction to Sustainable Healthcare’ on Monday, November 4 (12:00 – 13:00), experts from the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare (CSH) will present practical ways in which the health care and medical services sector can promote sustainable development goals. The speakers will show how sustainability can help us to improve quality and value, while reducing resource use.
Also on Monday, the CSH team will conduct a workshop (13:30 – 15:00) in which Sahlgrenska Academy’s teachers can learn about and practice educational models that CSH has developed for medical and health sciences training.
The seminar ‘Introduction to Sustainable Healthcare’ will also be repeated on Monday afternoon (16:00 – 17:00), with coffee.
On Tuesday November 5 (14:00 – 17:00), a longer public lecture will be delivered with an integrated workshop ‘What can we do about the climate impact of the Health care sector?’ The main audience for this will be students at Sahlgrenska Academy, but all are welcome.
The calendar contains more detailed information:
- Luncheon lecture – Introduction to Sustainable Health Care Work, Act!Sustainable
- Workshop – Pedagogics for the Integration of the SDGs in Medical Higher Education, Act!Sustainable
- Coffee lecture – Introduction to Sustainable Health Care Work, Act!Sustainable
- Public lecture – What can we do about the climate impact of the health care sector?, Act!Sustainable
The public lecture will be broadcast live online, and one of the lectures will be filmed for later viewing. Let us know if you are coming! @SusHealthcare
Sustainability and health are connected
Health care and medical services have a major impact on the climate, and an increasing number of stakeholders in the sector have committed themselves to greater sustainability in their operations. From ecological, social and economic points of view, sustainability is a key issue for health care and medical services that relates to the fundamental objective of promoting the population’s health.
“Of course, those of us who train the future staff and managers of health care and medical services need to emphasize the sustainability issue and relate it to our students’ future professional role,” says Gunilla Priebe, who convenes Sahlgrenska Academy’s network for sustainable development. “As teachers and researchers, we need to increase our awareness of Sahlgrenska Academy’s role in a sustainable society.”
Many of the courses taught at Sahlgrenska Academy have integrated sustainability aspects in their teaching, but none of the programs at the undergraduate level have come so far in the process that they consistently incorporate a sustainability mindset in their teaching.
Educational tools
The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, an independent charitable organisation, works primarily with the British National Health Service (NHS). CSH has about 50 affiliated researchers who develop sustainability solutions for various aspects of health care and medical services and also educational tools to train doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists and public health professionals. Their work has been published in The Lancet and elsewhere. www.sustainablehealthcare.org.uk
CSH runs the Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) network, which is a peer network to support teaching sustainable healthcare and planetary health. You can find resources and join here: https://networks.sustainablehealthcare.org.uk/network/education-sustainable-healthcare
The four principles of sustainable clinical practice are:
- Prevention – eg. diabetes monitoring to reduce kidney failure
- Patient empowerment and self-care – eg. sharing records between doctor and patient
- Lean systems – eg. telemedicine for follow-up appointments
- Low carbon alternatives – eg. switch from desflurane to sevoflurane as an anaesthetic gas
- View the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s list of publications: https://sustainablehealthcare.org.uk/resources/publications.
- Watch a short video presentation about CSH with a focus on initiatives taken in kidney treatment: https://youtu.be/KlT4kP8WSms
TEXT AND PHOTO: ELIN LINDSTRÖM
