On this episode hear Cara Cook describe her upstream approach to nursing practice.
Cara Cook, MSN, RN, AHN-BC is the Climate Change Program Coordinator for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. Her work focuses on elevating climate and health as a national priority by engaging nursing organizations and individual nurses in climate and health advocacy, education, and practice change. Cara was motivated to do this work after seeing the repeated nature of chronic disease in hospital settings. By looking more broadly, at social and environmental determinants of health, including climate change, Cara is shifting her focus more upstream, with hopes of improving health for a more broad constituency-from individual communities to global health improvements.
About your host, Beth Schenk
Elizabeth Schenk, PhD, MHI, RN-BC is Providence-WSU Nurse Scientist and Sustainability Coordinator at Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana. In addition, she is assistant research professor in Nursing at Washington State University in Spokane. Dr. Schenk co-leads nursing research efforts at St. Pat’s, and also across Providence St. Joseph Health, working with nursing leaders at 50 hospitals.
In addition, Dr. Schenk leads efforts for environmental stewardship at St. Patrick, and has worked with ministries across the system to reduce environmental impacts for the past 10 years. She co-leads ACES (Action Collaborative for Environmental Stewardship) across Providence St. Joseph. In her academic work, she developed the “Nurses Environmental Awareness Tool” which has been used in multiple states and several countries to assess awareness of the environmental impacts of hospital-based healthcare. Dr. Schenk serves on the national board of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, and several local boards.
In her free time, she loves her family, pets, garden, hockey, aikido and music.
