Health Symposium

We are already working on integrating challenges of the 21st century in curricula in several projects. However, we are also working on communicating some insights into education for the future outside of existing curricula. The KAN Party team is the driving force behind the Global Health Symposium in April. The 2-half-day symposium links global health with climate change and biodiversity loss and will end with a panel discussion on how these topics could be permanently integrated in the health curricula. After the symposium, this will be further worked on.

What is the relation between health and climate change? And how does biodiversity loss play into that? The COVID-19 crisis is just one current example reiterating the importance of these interaction.

KAN Party and IFMSA have organised a symposium to learn about these topics and address why they are not yet part of the health-related curricula at Maastricht University.

The symposium will include keynote speakers from Harvard University, The Lancet Countdown, Dutch and German Universities who will elaborate on the different aspects and perspectives of the relationship between health and climate change. During a short workshop, you will also get to learn about the links between biodiversity and psychology in an interactive way.

At the end of the second day, a panel discussion will take place on how we can incorporate the discussed aspects in all health-related curricula at UM. With these ideas, we hope to further push our university to act and adapt our education to our current and future challenges.

This event was partly made possible by the UM Promotion Fund, and the Universiteitsfonds Limburg.

Day 1 - 22nd of April

15:00-15:10 Introduction

15:10-15:50 Dr. Renzo Guinto - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

15:50-16:30 Prof. Peter Blankenstijn - UMC Utrecht

16:30-17:10 Dr. Andrea Christopher - University of Washington

17:10-17:50 Workshop with Kevin Rozario - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research

17:50-18:00 Closing the day

Day 2 - 23rd of April

12:00-12:10 Introduction

12:10-12:50 Dr. Marina B. Romanello - The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change

12:50-13:30 Joel Methorst - Helmut-Schmidt University