Embedding planetary health education into clinical medicine

Abstract

Educating medical learners about the impact of healthcare on planetary health is crucial to promote climate-conscious practice that reduces healthcare-associated greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs). Thus, integrating climate change education into medical training plays an important role in supporting sustainable health systems.¹

Most learners expressed that they had gained new knowledge from this process, with many indicating they would change their practice. Over-testing was identified as a key driver of low-value care and unnecessary GHG emissions, with particular focus on bloodwork like liver enzymes and CRP, ECGs, and X-rays. Common themes identified to reduce emissions were reducing length of stay, critically considering the necessity of tests and minimizing paper waste. The greatest challenge encountered was scheduling preparatory sessions (Step 1) led by a planetary health champion and consistent attendance of a champion at rounds. The presence of an attending physician knowledgeable about planetary health at rounds had the most impact on the richness of the discussion. Considering these factors, we are exploring embedding planetary health rounds preparation in the MTU lead resident's responsibilities and collaboration with other programmes to facilitate the consistent presence of a planetary health expert at rounds.

Our experience demonstrates how embedding planetary health rounds into a teaching unit can successfully initiate conversations that build knowledge and promote a climate-conscious approach to care.

Nabha Shetty: Conceptualization; funding acquisition; supervision; project administration; visualization; writing–review and editing; writing–original draft; resources; validation. Tajdeep Brar: Conceptualization; investigation; methodology; project administration; visualization; writing–review and editing; writing–original draft; formal analysis; validation. Sanjana Sudershan: Conceptualization; investigation; methodology; project administration; visualization; formal analysis; validation. Kerolos Youssef: Writing–review and editing; writing–original draft; visualization.

No conflicts of interest.

A research ethics board review exemption has been received for this project from the Nova Scotia Health Research Ethics Board.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.