From Climate Awareness to Climate Readiness: Reimagining Higher Education
Higher education has spent decades teaching students about climate change. That is no longer enough. As heatwaves close campuses, floods damage infrastructure, droughts disrupt food and water systems, and climate anxiety shapes student life, universities must move from climate awareness to climate readiness. The central question is no longer whether graduates understand climate change, but whether institutions are preparing them, and themselves, to live, lead, and solve problems in a warming world. Climate resilience should be treated as a core mission of higher education, not as an optional sustainability project. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear that climate risks are already affecting ecosystems, health, economies, and communities, and that adaptation must be accelerated alongside mitigation.1 Universities are uniquely positioned to answer this challenge because they educate future professionals, produce knowledge, manage large physical campuses, and often serve as trusted civic anchors. Their influence extends far beyond lecture halls. The first transformation must happen in the curriculum. Climate education cannot remain confined to environmental science courses.2 Engineers need to design infrastructure for extreme weather. Health students need to understand heat stress, disease shifts, and disaster response. Business students need to evaluate climate risk and just transitions. Teachers need tools to help young people understand uncertainty without despair. Artists and communicators need to translate data into public meaning. Research on sustainability education emphasizes systems thinking, anticipatory thinking, values-based reasoning, collaboration, and action-oriented problem solving as essential graduate capacities.3,4 In short, every discipline has a climate dimension. The second transformation must happen on campus. A university that teaches resilience but ignores its own vulnerability sends the wrong lesson. Campuses should become living laboratories for climate adaptation: mapping flood risk, redesigning buildings for heat, expanding green spaces, reducing emissions, protecting biodiversity, improving water systems, and ensuring continuity of learning during disasters. This approach links knowledge with practice and gives students authentic problems to solve. It also shifts sustainability from branding to institutional accountability. The third transformation must happen through community partnership. Climate resilience is place-based. A coastal university, an urban university, and a rural university face different risks and responsibilities. Institutions should work with local governments, schools, Indigenous communities, health systems, farmers, and civil society to co-create solutions. This matters because climate impacts are unequal. Students and communities with fewer resources often experience disruption first and recover last. A resilient university must therefore be a just university. Reimagining higher education for climate resilience requires leadership. It means embedding climate risk into accreditation, budgets, infrastructure planning, research funding, procurement, and student support. It means measuring success not only by publications and rankings, but by preparedness, public value, and social transformation. Climate awareness helped universities name the crisis. Climate readiness will determine whether they are worthy of the future they claim to serve.
Knowledge, Training Exposure, and Self-reported Dental Material Wastage among Undergraduate Dental Students in Pakistan: A Multicenter Cross-sectional Survey
Abstract Background: Dental material wastage in teaching clinics creates avoidable financial pressure and may contribute to environmental burden when materials are poorly handled or discarded. This study assessed undergraduate dental students’ awareness, training exposure, perceived causes and self-reported wastage of commonly used dental materials in Pakistan. Methods: A multicentre cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among third- and fourth-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery students with clinical or laboratory exposure to Operative/Conservative Dentistry and Prosthodontics. Of 642 distributed questionnaires, 600 complete responses were analysed. Categorical variables were summarised as frequencies, percentages and Wilson 95% confidence intervals. Results: Most respondents reported that dental materials were wasted during undergraduate training or clinical/laboratory work (594/600, 99.0%; 95% CI 97.8–99.5). Formal training was limited: 558 students (93.0%; 95% CI 90.7–94.8) reported no training on consequences of wastage and 540 (90.0%; 95% CI 87.3–92.2) reported no training on avoiding wastage. The leading perceived contributors were inadequate training (372/600, 62.0%) and inaccurate pre-procedure measurement (168/600, 28.0%). The highest prevalence of any self-reported material wastage was observed for polysulphide impression material (600/600, 100.0%), alginate, agar and gutta-percha points (each 558/600, 93.0%). Anterior and posterior resin composites were among the least frequently reported wasted materials (4.0% and 3.0%, respectively). Conclusion: Students recognised dental material wastage, but most had not received structured training on its consequences or prevention. Dental colleges should integrate accurate dispensing, supervised manipulation, material stewardship and waste-minimisation practices into preclinical and clinical teaching.
Perception of Soft Skills among Undergraduate Dental Students
It is the need of the hour to introduce the soft skills curriculum in undergraduate dental program as most of the students are aware of its importance in their professional life but could not comprehend whether they are being taught about them or not.
Developing and Validating a Scoring Framework for the Assessment of Curriculum Viability in Undergraduate Medical Education
This study presents the development and validation of a scoring framework for assessing curriculum viability in medical education. Using a two-phase quantitative design, norm tables were established for student and teacher questionnaires, followed by validation through the Modified Angoff Method and ROC analysis. The findings propose practical cut-off scores for interpreting curriculum viability, offering a structured and evidence-based tool to identify strengths and areas requiring improvement. This framework supports informed decision-making in educational planning and provides a foundation for further validation across diverse institutional contexts.
Trust, Ethical Calibration, and Clinical Reliance on Artificial Intelligence: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study Among Senior Medical and Dental Students
Background: The integration of AI into clinical decision-making raises critical questions about over-reliance, ethical awareness, and professional autonomy among future clinicians. Despite rapid AI adoption in healthcare, structured AI education in medical and dental curricula remains limited, particularly in low- and middle-income country settings. Key findings: Dental students demonstrated significantly higher AI trust (70.2 ± 10.8 vs. 65.9 ± 12.0; p < 0.001) but lower ethical calibration compared with medical students. Over-reliance behavior was identified in 28.5% of participants overall, with a higher prevalence among dental trainees (32.3% vs. 25.4%). Mediation analysis revealed that AI trust partially mediated the relationship between curriculum exposure and clinical reliance, accounting for 36% of the total effect. Conclusion: Greater curricular AI exposure increases trust, but without parallel ethical training, it may inadvertently promote uncritical reliance on AI recommendations. Integrating structured AI literacy and ethical reasoning into health professions education is essential for responsible clinical practice.
Developing and Validating a Global Digital Health Resilience Index to Predict Cross-national Health Outcomes During Public Health Shocks
Objective: To develop and validate a composite Global Digital Health Resilience Index (GDHRI) constructed from pre-shock baseline indicators and to assess its predictive capacity for cross-national variation in health outcomes during a public health shock. Methods: We conducted a cross-national ecological study using publicly available, aggregate country-level datasets. The GDHRI was constructed exclusively from pre-shock baseline indicators (2015–2019) capturing digital engagement capacity, information ecosystem integrity, and structural health system readiness. No shock-period variables were used in index development. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to establish construct validity. Predictive validity was evaluated against shock-period outcomes (2020–2022), including excess mortality, vaccination coverage, health service disruption, and case-fatality ratio, using multivariable cross-sectional regression, fixed-effects panel models, and machine learning robustness checks.
Self-Reported Hepatitis B Vaccination Status among Dental Health Care Providers and Students at Dental Colleges
Background: Despite the availability of effective vaccination, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major occupational hazard in developing countries for healthcare workers, particularly dental professionals, due to frequent exposure to blood, saliva, and sharp instruments. Objective: The study aimed to assess the hepatitis B vaccination status among dental faculty, students, and staff at Dental College HITEC IMS.
Educational Quality and Reliability of YouTube Videos on Hawley Retainer Fabrication: A Cross-sectional Content Analysis
YouTube is widely used by dental students to learn procedures such as Hawley retainer fabrication. However, the lack of peer review may result in variable educational quality and reliability. Therefore, evaluating the accuracy and completeness of these videos is essential before considering them as reliable learning resources.
Assessing Knowledge, Adherence, and Barriers to Cross-Infection Control Measures Among Dental Students: A Mixed-Methods Study
A key element of high-quality healthcare is effective therapeutic communication between nurses and patients, which improves patient happiness, comprehension, and recovery results. The purpose of this study was to assess nursing students' awareness and understanding of therapeutic communication at a private nursing school in Swat, Pakistan.
Concurrent Acute Limb Ischemia and Septic Shock in a Chemotherapy-Treated Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patient: A Multidisciplinary Challenge
Ali Hamza1, Zeeshan Ahmed2, Taha Rafiq3* 1 Mayo Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan 2 King Edward Medical University, Pakistan 3 University of Galway, Ireland *Corresponding address: University of Galway, Ireland Email: taharafiq54@gmail.com Received: 10 September 2025 / Revised: 07 October 2025 / Accepted: 13 October 2025 / Available Online: 15 December 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.63137/jsteam.823491 SUMMARY A 40-year-old male […]