What I am reading: Climate change in the Medical School Curriculum

Haines A, and Ebi K. The Imperative for Climate Action to Protect Health. NEJM 380:3; january 17, 2019

Awareness of climate change and its impact on human health has led to an increase in medical student initiatives to incorporate climate change into the medical school curriculum. Topics addressed will include environmental contributors to allergy and asthma such as wildfires, how climate change affects the spread of a tick habitat and transmission of diseases such as Lyme disease, how fossil-fuel related air pollutants might be linked to neurodegenerative changes in Alzheimer’s disease, the impact of heat on patients with cardiovascular conditions.  In order to not disrupt the curriculum, these topics are integrated in a variety of ways including adding relevant slides to preexisting lectures on disease topics or incorporating topics into simulation cases or offering as a clinical elective or course, or developing interdisciplinary interest groups. 

Some schools incorporating climate change into the curriculum include the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, University of Minnesota, the University of Colorado, and UCSF School of Medicine, and Tulane University School of Medicine.  

If you are interested there is a Medical Society Consortium of Climate and Health that includes 24 medical societies.