Breaking the plastic mould: rethinking single use plastics at medical school

Single use plastics are everywhere in healthcare, including medical schools. Over the past century, plastic’s robust, antimicrobial properties have made healthcare safer and more accessible.1 As a medical student, I use single use plastics daily: whenever I don personal protective equipment (PPE) during clinical teaching sessions, ward shadowing, and in theatres or when I practise clinical skills such as phlebotomy, cannulation, catheterisation, drug administration, and nasogastric tube insertion.As we all know, however, plastics come with sizeable costs to human and planetary health.2 Reduce, reuse, and recycle is a mantra frequently touted outside the hospital to tackle the plastics crisis, but it’s rarely heard within. As the future of the medical workforce, students could wield considerable influence in re-evaluating plastic consumption and devising solutions that reduce the environmental footprint of healthcare. Yet so far, medical schools are failing to create a generation ready to drive change: the curriculum fails to interrogate…
Read Original Article: Breaking the plastic mould: rethinking single use plastics at medical school »