The purpose of SHE is to educate change agents in health care, so that the UN Sustainable Development Goals become a matter of course in – in the face of for example pandemics, antibiotic resistance, over-treatment or the aging population. This calls for students not just to be engaged, but also to be involved in shaping their education.
Students and sustainability
Thinking sustainably is all about long-term thinking. Decisions that need to be made today must take future needs into account. Today’s students will have to live with our decisions and solutions. Consequently, it is important that the work being undertaken at SHE on sustainable education should also involve students when defining solutions.
SHE is an abbreviation for the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, a Centre of Excellence in Education that receives support from the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills. SHE is part of the Faculty of Medicine.
How do we encourage students to become involved?
This is about giving students influence, the freedom to provide input and responsibilities so that they can initiate and carry out projects. In this way, students will be able to help provide answers to some of the challenges that we are keen to solve in SHE:
- How do the SDGs challenge our understanding of health and health decisions?
- How can we prepare future healthcare professionals to act in accordance with these SDGs - and to make decisions about health that are sustainable in a social, economic and ecological perspective?
- How can we translate the 17 SDGs and their sub-goals into operational pedagogical principles for health education and into content that will be relevant in the education of health science students?
Students in SHE
Students are heavily involved in SHE. Several students helped to design the application for funding to establish the centre. Two representatives are on the Board. SHE consists of 8 work packages and one of these is led and owned by the students. The purpose of the latter work package is to increase student and teacher involvement in sustainable healthcare education. We have hired 4 students and they take it in turns to adopt the leadership role. Students have taken the initiative to create their own Instagram account which has a clear profile and content.
With effect from 1 January 2022 students can choose two elective courses on Sustainability and Health:
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Power and Knowledge in the Health Service (in norwegian)
- NEW in 2022: Climate Changes in Health (in Norwegian)
SHE announces student grants twice a year. The students evaluate and prepare shortlists, and follow up the projects. In addition, they create events which focus on sustainability and health, and they are also involved in other projects in SHE. For example, they are participating in the national climate initiative for medical education (which is led by SHE), they have initiated the STARS project in the Making-Wise-Choices campaign led by the Norwegian Medical Association and they are participating in the development of the Oslo Medical Corpus (a large document database/learning resource containing medical texts).
Learning outcomes
Students in SHE have the opportunity to make use of their subject in a way that would not normally be possible for other studies. Student opinions and involvement can influence important decisions; they can develop their understanding of sustainability and health and communicate this to fellow students. They can influence courses (the Folkefeber podcast is now part of the curriculum on the course entitled Power and Knowledge in the Health Service). They can also develop generic skills in oral and written communication and presentation techniques, strategic project work and collaboration, etc.
Valuable expertise
A change in attitude is required in order to achieve SHE’s objectives. We have a lot of confidence in our students. Looking at academic subjects from a fresh student viewpoint and having the ability to provide new perspectives provides SHE with valuable expertise so that we can see the larger perspectives (SDGs) in the smaller ones (everyday decisions).
"Sustainable health is all about taking advantage of wise heads and good innovative solutions. It is also about gender equality and not least offering everyone equally good health services now and in the future,” says Mathilde Røed Jørgensen, the head student representative at SHE.