Environmental Stewardship in Healthcare: A Nursing Perspective

A webinar with Dr. Elizabeth Schenk  – 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM EST

Presented by the Centre for Sustainable Health Systems & the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Healthcare is committed to treating illness and creating optimal conditions for health. Yet, healthcare also contributes significant pollution, which undermines conditions for health.

Nursing, as the largest profession in healthcare, has a professional obligation to reduce its environmental impacts.  In this talk, Dr. Schenk will describe common sources of pollution in healthcare, and in particular what nurses can do to address environmental stewardship in healthcare and decrease pollution from their practice.

Dr. Elizabeth Schenk – Providence – WSU Nurse Scientist

Elizabeth Schenk (PhD, MHI, RN-BC, FAAN) leads nursing research efforts across the 50-hospital Providence St. Joseph Health system. She is an assistant research professor at the Washington State University College of Nursing. As a nurse scientist, her primary research interest is in the environmental impacts of healthcare and nursing practice. Dr. Schenk developed the “Nurses Environmental Awareness Tool” which has been used in multiple states and several foreign countries to assess nurses’ awareness of the environmental impacts of hospital-based healthcare. She co-developed the CHANT: Climate, Health and Nursing Tool to monitor the nursing profession’s perceptions and behaviors related to climate change and health. She developed the WE ACT – Please Framework for environmental stewardship in nursing practice. In her board role for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, she produces and hosts the Nurses for Healthy Environments podcast.

Dr. Schenk is based at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana.