Climate Change Curricula in US Graduate Medical Education: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background Climate change threatens humanity’s health and well-being. While climate change topics have been increasingly incorporated into undergraduate medical education, it is unclear to what extent they have been incorporated into graduate medical education (GME) curricula in the United States. Objective To examine how climate change has been incorporated into GME curricula in the United States. Methods We conducted a scoping review of published literature from January 2013 through November 2023. PubMed and Scopus were searched, with articles assessed by 3 reviewers in a blinded fashion. Resources were included if they described how climate change is incorporated into GME curricula in the United States, and if they discussed topics such as disaster medicine, mass casualty events, environmental medicine, public health, health policy, wilderness medicine, quality improvement, and sustainability. Articles were analyzed using descriptive numerical analysis and qualitative assessment to identify article characteristics and themes. Results The inclusion criteria generated 17 articles that examined climate change incorporation into GME curricula and curriculum interventions covering topics used for inclusion. The most common type of article (5 of 17, 29%) employed surveys of program directors on the inclusion of climate-related topics. Conclusions Published accounts of climate-related topics in US GME program curricula are few. More content is found in topics related to emergency medicine. Curricula frameworks have been proposed for pediatric and internal medicine residency programs, but we know little about their efficacy. Future scholarship should fill these gaps to educate learners to improve health care sustainability and resiliency.