St Johns College, Bangalore has a relatively new department “Health and Humanities”, which introduces the students to music, art, literature, ecology, history, spirituality etc from the point of view of the health of an individual. The attempt is to get the young doctors-to-be to see all aspects of health – going beyond the traditional form of medical education including diagnoses, surgeries and medication.
BIOME Trust was invited to take a session on WATER for the first year MBBS students (It was a course on which the students would subsequently be tested and hence not to be taken lightly !) The idea was to sensitize the doctors to the water situation and make them aware of the various sources of water, water quality issues and treatment processes. Sustainable practices like Rainwater harvesting and waste water treatment and reuse were also discussed.
The young doctors were a chirpy and enthusiastic lot and are probably now totally immersed in formal medical education. From our experience we see that hospitals are now taking baby steps to understand and sustainably manage their water use. It will be nice to see at least some of these doctors leading the way in water management at hospitals
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| Most big cities source water from far away rivers |
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| Not everybody gets water in their taps |
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| The full class |