The Planetary Health Student Club
Dental Students meet Climate Consciousness
By Dr. Monisha Chinthala
To be a young and aspiring individual in the current global setting is extremely daunting. With economic recessions, humanitarian crises, and planetary degradation, it is easy to feel anxious and worried about what the future holds for us. One of the concerns that stood out in particular for me are the anthropogenic environmental changes. In addition to the helpless feeling that I experience, even though I want to contribute to solving these issues with the enthusiasm and skills I possess, I just don’t know where to start.
Amidst all this confusion, concern, and environment anxiety, I was fortunate to be presented with an opportunity by one of my professors. Dr. Sushi Kadanakuppe, an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Dentistry at V. S. Dental College & Hospital Bengaluru, had been venturing into the climate change space herself.
As a fellow oral health professional with years of experience in oral health research, she was exploring the effects of climate change on oral health and how much the healthcare industry, especially dental practices, contributes to global emissions (one of the key drivers of the climate crisis). To her surprise, there was little or no existing research regarding the above correlation, which pushed her to start working towards bridging this huge gap. And as the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown us how healthcare systems across the world are severely underprepared for any sort of health crisis. There is a dire need to prepare as healthcare professionals about Planetary Health, including the quality of the air we breathe and of the water we drink, the quality and quantity of food we produce, our exposure to infectious diseases, and even the habitability of the places where we live and how this is going to affect our patients and ourselves.
During her exploration, Dr. Sushi came across a unique initiative through Dr. Joshitha Sankam, Researcher at Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science and a Global Outreach Fellow at the Planetary Health Alliance, that medical students across the world were taking part in: Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC). This initiative was developed by a group of medical students from the University of California, San Francisco (USCF) back in 2019 and is currently led by Karly Hampshire (USCF), Taylor Diedrich (Indiana University, School of Medicine), and Isabel Waters (Trinity College Dublin). They aimed to assess the content of healthcare education through a metric-based tool identifying opportunities for improvement.
Taking inspiration from the ongoing efforts by medical, nursing, and pharmacy students across the world, Dr. Sushi, along with Dr. Jenny Girdler from Leeds Dental Institute, built a team of Dental Students from India, the UK, and the US to initiate the Dental version of the PHRC. Dr. Sushi gathered my classmates and me during my clinical rotation in the Department of Public Health Dentistry to explain the initiative. The anxious and hopeless side of me mustered up optimism and jumped at this opportunity that could potentially open more doors in my Planetary Health journey.
After multiple email threads with experts such as Dr. Donna Hackley (Harvard School of Dental Medicine) and Dr. Elizabeth Shick (School of Dental Medicine, University of Colorado) reviewing and suggesting changes to the current template of the card, we are currently in the process of initiating the pilot of the Dental PHRC. With the establishment of the first Dental PHRC, a fellow dental student from Columbia University, Bree Zhang, and I took responsibility as Dental PHRC Co-Leads to coordinate the pilot to begin by mid-2023. This is monumental for my classmates and me; we will be among the first Dental students in our country and the world to pilot the Dental PHRC with dental schools from the UK and the US.
Then began my journey. With the help of peers (fifth-year dental students) from V. S. Dental College & Hospital, we formed a group of nine to start the first student-led initiative in my college: Planetary Health Student Club (PHSC). The PHSC is dedicated to working towards sustainable oral health care, spreading awareness regarding the impacts of environmental changes on oral and general health, and vice versa. Since the formation of the PHSC, we have been successfully conducting orientation sessions to spread our message and recruit more enthusiastic students. We are also in the process of conducting interviews to better get to know our applicants in order to form a well-rounded, effective, and diverse team.
Currently, as a Club, we have attended two workshops: the first was conducted by the National Service Scheme (NSS) to train faculty members to include environmental and climate education into all streams of undergraduate and postgraduate curriculums. This session truly inspired us as we interacted with faculties from different disciplines who were doing their part to contribute towards this international movement.
We also got the opportunity to attend a two-day training program and workshop, Health in a Changing Climate: Empowering Health Professionals, at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science. This workshop meant a lot to our Club since our professor, Dr. Sushi, was a keynote speaker, representing the dental fraternity with her session on “Oral Health in a Changing Climate.” We felt a sense of pride to see our own professor highlighting the problems of oral health in the climate crisis to an audience of students and professors from different healthcare disciplines. Through this platform, she also showcased the work of our Club with hopes to get more representation from the healthcare community in this global movement. Also, it was during this workshop that we gained knowledge about Planetary Health and the initiatives undertaken by the Planetary Health Alliance.
One of our Club’s recent achievements includes the publishing of “Sustainability Guidelines for College Events and Meetings”, a detailed guide on how to make events more environment-conscious and less waste-generating. To implement these guidelines, we ensured that our graduation ceremony, which took place in February 2023, was a “green event,” setting an example for future events.
To spread the news and innovative work done in the climate space across the world and locally, a dedicated magazine is also in the works. The first edition will be published next month. We are also establishing ties with local NGOs and nonprofits, exploring how interdisciplinary collaborations can play a major role in this climate fight. Educating our patients regarding the effects of climate change on general and oral health is one of our target projects, which we aim to achieve through patient education materials and advocacy in community-outreach health camps conducted by our college.
To enable efficiency, we structured the Club into multiple committees: Activities, Scientific, Outreach, Editorial, and Public Relations Committees, led by myself (the student lead, Dr. Monisha) and my classmates Dr. Bhoomika S Kharvi, Dr. Ayush Mishra, Dr. Deepti MN, Dr. Syed Taha, Dr. Thulasi Patel, Dr. Lingaraj Bijapur, Dr. Ramya Rao, and Dr. Rashi. Our faculty lead is Dr. Sushi, and faculty mentors are Dr. Suma NK and Mrs. Savitha P Rao.
Our Club has just started to come together, and we can’t wait to work on more interesting and impactful projects to truly make a difference in our dental fraternity and the local community here in Bengaluru. It has been amazing to finally feel like I am doing my part through the expertise, knowledge, and skills I possess as a recently graduated dentist and an honour to represent not only my country, but my professional community, in this worldwide fight against the Earth crisis.
We are an example of how youth can take climate action in professional streams as the first step in our Planetary Health journeys. Climate change is real, happening right now, and it doesn’t discriminate against different professions. Society must come together and take a transdisciplinary approach to finding innovative solutions to tackle issues. We have only scratched the surface when it comes to the impacts on human health. Yes, it is sometimes difficult to stay motivated amidst the negative news and the slow progress being made by governments across the world, but by joining hands with fellow activists and professionals who are passionate to protect Planetary Health, we have hope for a safe future on our beautiful planet Earth.
