Climate Change and Healthcare - Virtual
LOCATION: Online
PRECEPTOR: Swapna Gayam, MD
DURATION: 2 weeks
OFFERED: Continuously
MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT: 15 (WVU student only)
STATUS: Elective
DESCRIPTION:
WHO declared climate change as the biggest public health threat of the 21st century. Healthcare has a significant contribution, especially in developed countries like USA- whose contribution is the largest globally (28% of global healthcare carbon footprint). Tackling this problem needs global efforts, especially from countries contributing the most. USA pledged to reduce its healthcare emissions at the recent COP26 climate change conference in 2021. Physicians, healthcare workers, hospitals and healthcare systems all bear responsibility towards this. Acknowledgement, Awareness and Education are key to start addressing this huge problem and learning about it in medical school is the best way to create a culture of thinking and tackling this issue by budding healthcare providers. Medical students from various US medical schools have already started addressing this by incorporating planetary health and climate change in their medical curriculum. WVU should join this effort in making healthcare accountable for its carbon footprint and raising awareness to this growing problem.
OBJECTIVES:
Patient Care:
Identify how climate change affects human health, especially vulnerable populations and learn the relationship of certain conditions with climate change. - learn how climate change mitigation strategies co-benefit both human and planetary health. - Explain why and how to educate patients and families about environmental sustainability and the benefits of climate change mitigation. - Explain how to care for populations that are affected by climate change. –Identify characteristics of climate change resilient health systems.
Medical Knowledge:
-Examine the impact of climate change on overall human health and specific organ systems as defined and illustrated by CDC. – Identify the effect of climate change on mental and psychosocial health. - Examine the changing vector ecology due to top climate change and its effect on global and local infectious disease pattern.
Practice-Based Learning:
-Explain the need to educate ourselves about the causes of climate change, its effect on human health and the scientific evidence behind it. – Identify how preventive and public health medicine helps reduce strain on healthcare and how that reduces the negative impact of healthcare on environmental health. –Demonstrate how to incorporate evidence based information about climate change mitigation strategies in patient care and how to encourage shared decisions with patients based on facts.
Communication Skills:
-Explain how to gauge patients'/ families' interest in climate change, how to introduce the topic where appropriate. – Demonstrate how to communicate effectively about the link between environmental and human health and how to explain how certain conditions are liked to climate change. - Identify when it is appropriate or inappropriate to engage in this topic. – Demonstrate how to effectively educate and counsel patients on this topic.
Professionalism:
Demonstrate how to respect patients'/ families' cultural beliefs and socioeconomic backgrounds when discussing the topic of climate change and how to consider these factors when formulating recommendations and plans. - Demonstrate how to communicate effectively while being careful not to force the information on patients/ families. Explain how not to 'shame' patients'/ families' practices/ habits/ beliefs pertaining to this topic.
Systems-Based Practice:
Examine the larger context of global climate change and the role of physicians as leaders in raising awareness, educating and advocating for mitigation strategies. - Explain how to pool available information to address the role of healthcare in the current climate crisis and how to reduce this effect. – Explain how to educate peers and patients on the importance of preventive and public health approach, pro-active rather than reactive patient care and how it helps.
METHODS TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES:
This is a virtual elective offered to MS4 students. This includes a series of lectures by experts, designed by Emory University School of Medicine and already in use. - A lecture recorded by the preceptor will also be included
EXAMINATION PROCEDURES AND EVALUATION CRITERIA:
Formative Assessment:
Each lecture will be accompanied by questions to be answered by the students or writing an opinion essay.
Summative Assessment:
At the end of the semester, students will be asked to choose among- - Writing an essay on their thoughts on the topics of climate change in general/ the role of healthcare in climate change/ their thoughts on what healthcare can do to tackle this issue/ design a mock research project on how rot assess the role of healthcare or actionable mitigation steps.
PRIOR TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE ROTATION:
Please contact Dr. Gayam, sgayam@hsc.wvu.edu at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the elective.