UC School of Pharmacy Participates in Planetary Health Pilot

UCSOP one of three schools participating across the US 

The University of Charleston School of Pharmacy was one of only three schools across the nation to participate in the Planetary Health Report Card Pharmacy Pilot, which was unveiled on Earth Day, April 22, 2022.

This is a student-driven, metric-based initiative to inspire planetary health in health profession schools. Recent Class of 2022 graduate Ashley Lam is serving as the US Regional Lead for this international initiative and has worked closely with her faculty research mentor Dr. Alice Gahbauer, and rising P4 Students Maryheather Walsh and George Chalil.

Dr. Gahbauer and Dr. Lam were also published in the Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy earlier this year with the article, “Active hope: The Personal and Professional Roles of Pharmacists in Climate Action.”

The Planetary Health Report Card for Pharmacy pilot was initiated by Ellie Self, trainee pharmacist, and Dr Alison Astles, subject lead at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Adaptation of the medical school metrics to pharmacy began with changing them to reflect the core principles of pharmacy education and professional pharmacy practice. Ellie and Alison presented the idea to a sustainability working group of academics in the UK who expressed support for the initiative. Ellie was then joined by the student leadership team (Ashley Lam, Kayla Pangilinan, Ladan Karim-Nejad and Yewon Byun) who reviewed and refined the metrics to ensure they were relevant and applicable internationally. The metrics were reviewed by pharmacy academics in the UK and USA before it was disseminated to students. Three pharmacy schools participated in the pilot – University of Charleston US, University of Montana US, and Virginia Commonwealth University US.