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. 2022 Aug;131(2):149-152.
doi: 10.1111/bcpt.13757. Epub 2022 Jun 5.

Medicines, environment and clinical pharmacology

Outi Lapatto-Reiniluoto  1 , Mia Siven  2 , Janne T Backman  1   3 , Anneli Törrönen  4
Affiliations

Medicines, environment and clinical pharmacology

Outi Lapatto-Reiniluoto et al. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Medical associations and other societies have announced their theses on protection of the climate and environmental aspects in medicine. The challenges with climate change and sustainability are complex, and no quick solutions are to be found. However, basic knowledge on these issues should be available to everyone, and environmental aspects of drugs are important to all healthcare professionals. We present here a study with medical students who were introduced for the first time to environmental aspects of medicines. The results confirmed the suitability and feasibility of the approach to introduce this subject to students, and we propose that the same method can be used also when explaining the issue to medical professionals. We would like to encourage particularly clinical pharmacologists, pharmacologists and pharmacists to take a more apparent position in this field and to participate in the discussions where the strategies for the choice of medicines are considered.

Keywords: drugs; environment; healthcare professionals; sustainability.

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Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Responses of medical (n = 121) and pharmacy (n = 75) students to the following question concerning their education: “In the following, you will find selected statements. Please, select the ones that you consider relevant in curriculum reform and future progress towards green pharmacy practices in education. (multiple choices are possible).” Results are shown in %
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