Planetary health workshop brings together faculty and staff across campus
The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy has received a $6,500 Sustainability Integration in Curriculum (SIC) grant from the Sustainability Office to embed sustainability throughout the PharmD program. With growing environmental challenges, the School is committed to equipping future pharmacists with the tools to lead sustainable practices in their careers.
“There are many disciplines with clear ties to sustainability across campus. We’re looking for innovative ideas where the connection isn’t immediately obvious,” Matthew Thijssen, director of sustainability, University of Waterloo says. “Pharmacy stood out because of its unique potential to integrate sustainable practices from the ground up, and the team’s passion with a vision that extends beyond pharmacy students.”
The grant will support training and education for faculty and staff to work towards a more future-focused PharmD curriculum that addresses climate change, medication-related emissions, planetary health and more.
“We’re committed to preparing our next generation of pharmacists for a better future,” Allison Slater says, assistant professor at the School. “Climate change is a big challenge in healthcare. Medication manufacturing and waste contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental disruption directly impacts human health.”
To kick-off this initiative, the School hosted an in-person workshop titled, Teaching for Tomorrow – Planetary Health in Pharmacy Teaching. The event brought together faculty and staff from Pharmacy and across campus including, the Sustainability Office, Waterloo Climate Institute, Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation, Faculty of Science and Centre for Teaching Excellence.
The event was led by Canadian Association of Pharmacy for the Environment (CAPhE) co-chair Shellyza Sajwani, and Waterloo Pharmacy alum Randilynne Urslak (Rx2023), who are both pharmacists, planetary health experts and adjunct professors at the University of Ottawa. The workshop covered topics that focused on how pharmacy intersects with planetary health including climate mitigation and adaptation, disaster planning, responsible use of medication resources, patient counselling and strategies for integrating planetary health into the pharmacy curriculum.
“Planetary health is a broad topic. During the workshop, we highlighted tangible examples and tools that faculty and staff can use to integrate it into the pharmacy curriculum, including opportunities to incorporate it into existing content like deprescribing and patient counseling,” says Urslak.
Sajwani and Urslak touched on different ways pharmacists can make a difference. From choosing environmentally friendly drug alternatives to educating patients about medication interactions with heat related illness.
“We want pharmacists to consider the environment in everything that they do. Whether it’s assessing a patient, drug development, medication prescribing or disposal, there’s so many ways we can make an impact,” Urslak adds.
Group discussions between attendees focused on building the foundations of planetary health in pharmacy and integrating sustainable learning opportunities for students across their learning journey through a different lens.
“When I first started learning about this area, I realized how much pharmacy education and practice has the potential to change the future,” Slater adds. “Even small shifts like changing our thought process and decision making to include drug alternatives with less environmental impact when providing patients with medication options. We already teach our students many of the concepts that we learned about in the workshop, but making a more explicit connection to the environment and climate impacts helps to drive home the impact.”
The School plans to use the grant to continue these conversations to build a sustainable curriculum by bringing in external expertise and collaborating with the Indigenous Office and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, climate science experts and others to shape a curriculum that reflects diverse perspectives and sustainable values.
“Climate change is everyone’s problem,” Urslak says. “And pharmacists are uniquely positioned to make a difference environmentally and clinically in an environmentally forward future.”