A forum to rethink health sciences curricula

Thaïs Lasar (1), Audrey Beghon (2), Josué Dusoulier (3), Françoise Thyrion (4), Anne Berquin (5) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

As part of a participative approach, a student forum was organized in March 2023, in collaboration with the Green Team of the Student General Assembly of the University of Louvain in Woluwe, to reflect on the medical studies of the future. The meeting followed the world café methodology, enabling participants to gradually enrich their thinking on three questions: scientific content/knowledge, skills/attitudes, and the teaching methods/learning systems needed to meet the challenges of the future. The discussions opened the debate and generated ideas that will enrich our thinking on teaching programs. It would be interesting to repeat the experience with a larger group, to provide better information upstream and to involve the Green Team students earlier in the process, right from the workshop’s design. In addition, the forum could contribute to a wider process of continuing education for students, in particular training in a participative approach to governance and the mobilization of the imagination.

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Adapt the training of future caregivers to prepare them for the challenges of sustainable development and transition

Audrey Beghon, Léticia Warnier, Marie-Amélie Lenaerts (1) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

Our societies are dealing with complex sustainability problems. Health has been defined by the United Nations as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, revealing the close link between health issues and both ecological and environmental issues. Understanding and addressing these issues requires future healthcare professionals to develop specific knowledge and skills. These abilities need to be integrated into their training programs, though this cannot be taken for granted. This article explores the following question: How can we adapt the curriculum for future healthcare professionals in order to prepare them for sustainability challenges? To these questions, we herein attempt to provide four possible responses: 1) a multi-level commitment to share responsibility; 2) identification of the sustainability skills that health care students need to acquire; 3) integration of the latter into training courses and programs; 4) adaptation of teaching methods to enable students to engage in learning, so as to transform themselves and have authentic experiences. We hope that this thinking framework, in addition to the practical recommendations it contains, will help those with a role to play in healthcare sciences curricula

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Sustainable nutrition and health

Nathalie M. Delzenne Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming the 2016-2025 time period as the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. The pursued objective was and still is to guarantee universal access to healthier and more sustainable food in order to eradicate all forms of malnutrition across the world. Malnutrition encompasses the problems of undernutrition, referring to deficiency of energy, proteins, essential nutrients, which is responsible for a significant number of pathologies mainly affecting children and women. Nevertheless, malnutrition also comprises imbalances characterized by excessively caloric intake and over-consumption of lipids, salts, and sugars leading to obesity, with its chronic associated pathologies. In this article, based on the case of obesity and associated cardiovascular diseases, we sought to further illustrate the concept that adhering to a healthy lifestyle combined with a more sustainable diet is feasible. Its ultimate objective is to achieve a joint improvement in human health, animal health, and environmental health. This is being referred to as the “one health” concept.

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Pharmaceutical micropollution: challenges and prospects for hospitals

Pauline Modrie (1), Olivier Henriet (2) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

Up to 70% of consumed drugs in hospitals are retrieved in the form of drug residues in wastewater. Conventional wastewater treatment plants are unable to completely purify these pharmaceutical micropollutants. To limit the environmental impact of drug consumption and persistence of xenobiotics in surface waters, solutions both upstream and downstream of drug treatment exist. For instance, the discharge of problematic micropollutants into effluents must be limited through eco-designed care, which duly examines each stage of hospitalized patient care in order to limit pollutant discharges. This involves appropriate consumption, including adapting to patient weight, de-prescribing, selecting less impactful molecules, as well as avoiding cleaning-related discharges. At the downstream level, it is similarly possible to limit the impact of wastewater treatment. Various solutions exist, with encouraging results already obtained to date, as a 70% - 100% purification of micropollutants in hospital wastewater is ensured by these means.

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Reintroducing limits and finitude for a more sustainable medicine

Laurent Knoops (1,2,3), Alexandra Coulon (1,2) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

The Western medical model often strives relentlessly to combat illness, aging, and death without establishing well-defined boundaries. This approach can result in potentially excessive treatments, especially towards the end of life, leading to suffering, squandered resources, and unnecessary costs. We endorse the notion that reintroducing the concept of limits and finitude into medical practice is pivotal. Engaging in discussions about death with our patients, working on hope, setting boundaries, and implementing a quality-of-life approach early on are all integral to ensuring that medicine remains accessible to the needs of future generations.

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Using medications better by using less. An educational and environmental imperative

Anne Spinewine (1), Tokandji Rostand Adda (2) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

Overprescription of medications undermines patients’ quality of life and safety. It also impacts the healthcare system and the environment. According to the report “Decarbonizing Health for Better Care” published by The Shift Project in 2023, medication purchases constitute the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the healthcare sector, accounting for over 14.5 million tons of CO2. This represents 29% of the sector’s total emissions.

To implement a rational use of medication and in response to sustainable development challenges, deprescribing emerges as a solution. It is a process aimed at identifying, reducing, or even discontinuing overprescribed medications. However, its implementation in routine clinical practice remains limited.

In this article, we propose actions and strategies that could foster changes in the habits of current and future healthcare professionals regarding medication deprescribing, thus promoting the concept of sustainable healthcare.

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Strategies for reducing the environmental impact of healthcare – a systemic approach

David Grimaldi (1), François Roucoux (2), Anne Berquin (3) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

From a systemic perspective, the healthcare system can be seen as an open system, involving flows of energy and materials, and producing greenhouse gases and waste besides healthcare. It is estimated that healthcare consumes between 4% to 7% mineral resources, metals, and fossil fuels used on earth each year, and produces more than 5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce this impact, it is necessary to combine an “item-by-item” approach with a more global and systemic one, which will require far-reaching changes. A few examples are given, particularly concerning the use of information and communication technologies

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Climate change, mental health, and eco-anxiety

Clara Della Libera (1), Camille Mouguiama Daouda (1), Gérald Deschietere (2), Alexandre Heeren (1,3,4) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

In 2022, the second section of the sixth report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dedicated a full chapter to the impact of climate change on health, including physical, community, and mental health. In terms of mental health, the authors reported observations of various impacts related to direct and indirect exposure to extreme weather events (e.g., floods) and gradual chronic changes (e.g., air pollution). Adequately documented, such impacts require the rapid adoption of healthcare system action plans. Beyond these effects, anxiety linked to the anticipation of climate change impacts – also known as eco-anxiety – represents an underexplored field whose prevalence and consequences on mental health remain poorly investigated. Recent studies suggest that, when moderate in intensity, eco-anxiety may constitute an adaptive response that stimulates the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors without harming mental health. Delimiting the existence and predictors of such a range represents a crucial challenge of scientific research in this field. Here, we present some potential clinical interventions derived from similar fields of psychotherapy.

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Prevention and healthcare organization

Jean Macq (1), Anne Berquin (2) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

Preventive healthcare, which generally decreases the need for medical treatment, is one of the levers for reducing healthcare’s environmental impact. Implementing preventive measures requires a global approach. This goes beyond the “disease” model, and simultaneously considers individual health, population health, and global/planetary health, from a systemic perspective that takes into account uncertainty and long term considerations. To tackle this challenge, we need to encourage dialogue and cross-fertilization of viewpoints, particularly among the three healthcare organization levels (micro level and its “health referent” function, meso level of catchment areas at which primary healthcare provision and its coordination with hospitals are established, macro level at which a country’s healthcare policies are defined). Sustainable development, prevention, and healthcare share numerous observations: we need to change our mindset, and in particular make more room for dialogue, deliberation, and uncertainty.

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Outdoor physical activity and the health of future generations: a link between the environment, physical activity, and pediatrics

Nicolas Peeters (1), Lucie Vancraeynest (2) Published in the journal : January 2024 Category : Durabilité et Soins de Santé: Quels Défis pour le Futur

The health benefits of physical activities for children and adolescents are numerous and widely documented. While the World Health Organization recommendations for physical activity are clear, only 27 to 33% of children and adolescents worldwide achieve them. Belgium is no exception, with a very low percentage of children and adolescents having adequate levels of physical activity. In addition to various mental and physical health benefits of nature, the outside environment can play a role in promoting physical activities. Children and adolescents in contact with green spaces reportedly have higher levels of physical activity and less sedentary habits. In the outdoor environment, children exercise more intensively and spontaneously. Outdoor physical activities are likely to have a positive impact on young people’s health and general physical activity levels. Getting children outside more often and reconnecting them to nature can play an interesting role in the health of future generations.

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