Teaching Sustainable Healthcare through the Critical Medical Humanities

Watch/listen to the webinar

Watch/listen to the webinar in SHEs YouTube Channel.

We need critical medical humanities into SDG discussions

In the paper Teaching Sustainable Healthcare through the Critical Medical Humanities published in the Lancet,  Engebretsen, Sharma, Sandset, Heggen, Ottersen, Clark, & Greenhalgh argue for a more critical, transformative and philosophically-underpinned approach to teaching Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The standard approach presents the SDGs as uncontested and universally agreed-upon targets, which oversimplifies their complexity and inherent contradictions and engages only superficially with the central unifying theme of sustainability. Whilst environmentally friendly healthcare practices and reducing healthcare’s carbon footprint are important goals, conflating them with the sustainability agenda conveys an overly narrow message about what sustainability is and how we might achieve it.

To address these issues, the article proposes a more radical approach that integrates critical medical humanities into sustainable healthcare education and SDG discussions. In this webinar, the authors and panelists will discuss this transformative agenda and share insights and experiences, highlighting the potential benefits and challenges of this approach in both educational and practical settings.

Students as change agents

How can we empower the next generation of medical professionals to become agents of critical inquiry and radical social change? How can medical schools evolve from a limited, technical, and jargon-focused approach to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) education, toward a more comprehensive and visionary perspective that recognizes the intricate links between health, equity, and sustainability?

Read the paper.

Program

Time	Title	Speaker
14:00	Welcome	Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, University of Oslo and Chairman of the SUSTAINIT Advisory Board
14:02	Introductory statement from The Lancet	Jessamy Bagenal, Senior Executive Editor in The Lancet
14:05	Recorded statement	Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, Chair of Global Leadership Foundation & Patron of the Helen Clark Foundation (TBC)
14:08	Introduction of paper	Professor Eivind Engebretsen, Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education, University of Oslo
14:13	Short remarks	Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, Oxford University       Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, University of Oslo     Researcher Tony Sandset, Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education, University of Oslo     Professor Kristin M. Heggen, Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education, University of Oslo   Student Ritika Sharma, medical student & student leader at Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education
14:38	Commentary	Dr. Magda Robalo Correia e Silva, President and co-founder of The Institute for Global Health and Development.
14:48	Q&A from audience	Moderated by Professor Eivind Engebretsen

 

This event is organized by SUSTAINIT - the new sustainable health unit at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. SUSTAINIT encompasses the Centre for Global Health, the Centre for Pandemics & One Health Research, and the Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE).