Nurse here! This keeps popping into my mind, keeps leaving me drawing a blank. Healthcare is a massive and resource-devouring industry, but is stuffed with people who actually give a shit about the people around them: the industry is a good candidate for improvement, and the people in it are likely to actually embrace those improvements (well, barring the odd salty af mofo who loses their shit at the first signs of change, but that person's in every industry - they'll figure it out eventually.)
I work in a run-of-the-mill hospital in the US, which encourages staff to take on system improvement projects, and these are were I see potential - especially for new nurses gunning for promotions.
The problem is what and how. All I can think of are things like recycling programs to tackle medical waste, but (at my facility at least) the waste that isn't already being recycled is either biohazardous or risks becoming biohazardous (like medication waste is huge, but we can't save half a vial of unused injection due to the possibility of that being contaminated by the first needle that drew from it).
So, looking for project ideas, both that I can start to implement myself, or to suggest to other staff looking to polish their resume. Smaller scale stuff is great for newer nurses; big scale stuff I can throw at management and see what sticks.
Let me know if you think of anything! Thanks all!
I'm afraid hospitals are systemically and ideologically incompatible with solar punk.
getting together with other medics and starting neighborhood clinics however would be much easier than attempting reform from the inside.
also stuff like DIY medicine, it would help me greatly as a trans person if medics stopped policing medical knowledge and taught us their skills instead. the idea that medicine can only be safe if practiced with a license is one that's getting countless trans people killed because we're denied the autonomy to save ourselves. the major example is DIY estrogen being safe but most doctors would tell me succumbing to a dysphoria-induced suicide is the healthier option
"medics" are so hellbent on restricting acces behind licences because so many people want to heal your cancer by injecting hydrogen peroxide into your veins and call it "alternative medicine" you would never believe.