by Suvi Sivula, MSc (Pharm) student
Pharmaceutical education prepares students to work in different sectors of the pharmacy field and during various steps of the drug life cycle. If all of the pharmaceutical students gain the same knowledge about Green Pharmacy during their undergraduate studies, it does not matter where they will work later; they already have the green way of thinking when they enter work life so it is not only up to their own or their employers how educated they will be. With acknowledging the issues related to pharmaceuticals, environment, and health, safe acts could be implemented and promoted at workplaces by the new Generation Green. If we want environmental management and sustainable thinking to become a part of our lives as pharmacy professionals, it is time to start working on it.
University students of the present generation are generally well aware of environmental sustainability, but the environmental aspects have not been covered so well in pharmaceutical education. It feels pretty weird to me that these aspects have come up so late.
Environmental issues are a hot topic nowadays, but not so much in the pharmacy field. Why? The environmental load of drugs, caused by the pharmaceuticals industry and consumption of medicines, has not yet been discovered so well. But it is obvious that for example research and drug development processes, medication counselling, rational use of medicines, and disposal of unused medicines are some of the important steps of drug life cycle that should be observed.
Because of the heavy and harmful load that drugs are causing to the environment, it is good that our team, Generation Green, is one of those who are taking action towards safer and greener environment. This is going to be done by reforming the curriculum at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, and then spreading the word nationally and internationally. I think our students understand the significance of the project even though the concept of Generation Green would still be a bit vague to people – that’s fair because we are just trying to find out the way how to implement the changes by ourselves, too!
What would be the best way to learn about Green Pharmacy then? One opportunity could be to create new courses specifically with an environmental focus and offer them either as mandatory or optional courses. Gained knowledge in Green Pharmacy could also be accredited with an additional certificate; for example, Thompson Rivers University in Canada offers a credential called Leadership in Environmental Sustainability to all of its undergraduate and graduate students along with any credit program. It is not related to pharmacy, but it is one way to offer university students an opportunity to acquire environmental competencies. However, I don’t think that specific environmental focused courses would be appealing to most of our pharmacy students. In addition, our curriculum is already so tight that the number of students taking those optional courses would probably be pretty small. This is why our team wants to revise the pharmacy curriculum, implement green perspectives to each of the courses, and provide future pharmacists with awareness of the environmental load of our practises and customers’ medication use.
One of the most important things is to change our way of thinking: both students and university staff should acknowledge the importance of Green Pharmacy, be interested in learning more about safe acts, and commit to make their best effort to reduce the environmental causes of pharmaceuticals. All of the faculty staff needs to be involved and cooperate with each other so they can act as role models for students; their attitude and relationship to environmental issues will play a big role when teaching the Generation Green. Students’ part is to gain knowledge, take the green practices as part of their daily professional lives and spread the word to other generations and customers. Positive attitude, interest in taking care of the environment, and commitment to take responsibility of our actions are some of the key points needed to make the Generation Green project successful – and that involves both faculty staff and students.