The Unique Role of Medical Students in Catalyzing Climate Change Education

Abstract

Climate change is a well-recognized threat to human health with impacts on every organ system and with implications for disease processes across subspecialties. Climate-driven environmental exposures influence the pathophysiologic underpinnings of disease emphasized in the pre-clinical years of medical school. While medical schools are beginning to offer climate change and health electives, medical education is lagging in providing fundamental climate-and-health content to adequately prepare the next generation of physicians for the challenges that they will face in the provision of healthcare and the prevention and treatment of disease. This perspective piece highlights the unique role of medical students in catalyzing the incorporation of climate content into the pre-clinical medical school curriculum and provides topics for disseminated curricular integration with the concepts emphasized in the pre-clinical years of medical education.

The Role of Behavioral Medicine in Addressing Climate Change-Related Health Inequities

“…Climate change and health equity policies can also be advanced through direct advocacy efforts [ 120 ]. There are multiple examples of advocacy leading to institutional policy change including student-led advocacy to divest from fossil fuels at Historically Black Colleges and Universities [ 121 ], Harvard [ 122 ], and the University of Minnesota [ 123 ], medical students advocating for the inclusion of climate change in their educational curriculum [ 124 ], and nurses advocating to reduce the environmental footprint within their healthcare systems [ 125 ]. These institutional efforts can influence market forces, which is especially important for system-level changes in fossil fuel consumption, where market prices fail to reflect the true cost of use [ 126 ].…”

Planetary Health Education and Capacity Building for Healthcare Professionals in a Global Context: Current Opportunities, Gaps and Future Directions

“…Moreover, there were two review articles, one case study, one consensus statement, one qualitative study, one report of a workshop and one global survey included in this review. Out of 33 included articles, the ongoing or suggested inclusion of PH for medical curriculum was mentioned in 14 articles [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ] and nurses were the target group in 6 articles [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Guzmán and colleagues have drafted the overarching PH education framework [ 3 ], which needs to be followed by the educators, students, leaders and mentors from all disciplines including the healthcare profession.…”

Mapping climate change and health into the medical curriculum: co-development of a “planetary health – organ system map” for graduate medical education

“…A 2019 New England Journal of Medicine interactive perspective provides a useful open access resource in that direction (33). More recently, Emory University students and staff reported their experience in the incorporation of climate content into the pre-clinical, pathophysiology centred medical school curriculum (34). Whilst their report includes some examples of climate change-organ-system linkages and learning objectives, it is neither systematic in process nor pedagogically structured under one or other of the preceding international frameworks.…”