E62 Andrea MacNeill On Planetary Health In The Operating Room

Have you ever stared at the garbage bags in the operating room and thought – that’s a lot of trash! Dr. Andrea MacNeill (https://twitter.com/Ecosurgeon?s=20) took that thought and decided to do something about it. Dr. MacNeill is a surgical oncologist at Vancouver General Hospital and is on a mission to improve planetary health, inside and outside the operating room. We ask her in this episode to walk us through how the operating room impacts the environment, what we can do to lessen that impact, and how that effort might help cut costs and improve patient care.

Links:
1. Paper in Lancet Planetary Health: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29851650/

2.Life cycle environmental emissions and health
damages from the Canadian healthcare system: An economic-environmental-epidemiological analysis. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002623

3. Transforming The Medical Device Industry: Road Map To A Circular Economy. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01118

Bio (from BCHLC website: https://cchl-ccls.ca/site/bchlc_plenary_MacNeill)

Dr. Andrea MacNeill is a surgical oncologist at Vancouver General Hospital and BC Cancer, and a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia where she specializes in sarcoma and peritoneal malignancies.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Change and Management and has published a number of studies investigating the environmental impacts of healthcare activities.  She is the international working group lead for sustainable healthcare for CODA, a global health community mobilizing around climate and health issues, and is co-leading a Canadian initiative for a commitment to net zero healthcare emissions.  She is working with Vancouver Coastal Health on a transformational planetary health strategy to mitigate the healthcare climate footprint while creating health and social value.  She is committed to designing health systems for optimal planetary health and educating health professionals to be agents of change.