How can healthcare educators prepare their students for the clinical consequences of an increasingly unstable climate? What role can teachers and trainers have in changing clinical practice to support a more sustainable healthcare system?
An interdisciplinary panel of Sustainable Healthcare Education members led a plenary session to open the NET Networking in Healthcare Education annual conference in Cambridge this month.
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum (WHO) leads the climate change and health team within Public Health and Environment at WHO. He presented an update on the health effects of climate change internationally and the growing role of health professionals in adaptation and mitigation strategies. Download slides here.
Annabel Bennett (NHS Sustainable Development Unit) gave an overview of the NHS SDU's world-leading work to fulfil its potential as an exemplary, sustainable and low carbon organisation. Download slides here.
Stefi Barna (Public Health Lecturer, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia) shared new proposals for national guidance on climate change and sustainable healthcare teaching across the undergraduate medical curriculum.
Ben Whittaker (Sustainable Occupational Therapy Network, Centre for Sustainable Healthcare) highlighted new guidance from the World Federation of Occupational Therapists position statement on environmental sustainability. Ben proposed an expansion of the occupational therapy paradigm to incorporate sustainable global wellbeing and you can read about this in the September 2012 issue of the British Journal of Occupational Therapy: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cot/bjot
Benny Goodman (Lecturer in Adult Nursing, Plymouth University) gave examples of how sustainability, climate change and health can be incorporated into existing Nursing Medical Council guidance.
The plenary was well received and the topic will become a regular feature of NET meetings. Any health educators who would like to be present on their teaching are invited to apply for a joint interdisciplinary symposium for NET 2013. (Download the NET2013 Early Call for Abstracts) Please contact Benny Goodman or Ben Whittaker if you would like to be involved.
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