Climate Change and Medical Education: An Integrative Model

Medical schools face a challenge when trying to include new topics, such as climate change and health (CCH), in their curricula because of competing demands from more traditional biomedical content. At the same time, an understanding of CCH topics is crucial for physicians as they have clear implica...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Academic medicine Vol. 97; no. 2; p. 188
Main Authors: Sullivan, James K, Lowe, Katherine E, Gordon, Ilyssa O, Colbert, Colleen Y, Salas, Renee N, Bernstein, Aaron, Utech, Jon, Natowicz, Marvin R, Mehta, Neil, Isaacson, J Harry
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 01.02.2022
Subjects:
Climate Change
Curriculum
Education, Medical - organization & administration
Models, Educational
Schools, Medical - organization & administration
ISSN:1938-808X, 1938-808X
Online Access:Get more information
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Medical schools face a challenge when trying to include new topics, such as climate change and health (CCH), in their curricula because of competing demands from more traditional biomedical content. At the same time, an understanding of CCH topics is crucial for physicians as they have clear implications for clinical practice and health care delivery. Although some medical schools have begun to incorporate CCH into curricula, the inclusion usually lacks a comprehensive framework for content and implementation. The authors propose a model for integrating CCH into medical school curricula using a practical, multistakeholder approach designed to mitigate competition for time with existing content by weaving meaningful CCH examples into current curricular activities. After the authors identified stakeholders to include in their curricular development working group, this working group determined the goals and desired outcomes of the curriculum; aligned those outcomes with the school's framework of educational objectives, competencies, and milestones; and strove to integrate CCH goals into as many existing curricular settings as possible. This article includes an illustration of the proposed model for one of the curricular goals (understanding the impacts of climate change on communities), with examples from the CCH curriculum integration that began in the fall of 2020 at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. The authors have found that this approach does minimize competition for time with existing content and allows mapping of content to existing curricular competencies and milestones, while encouraging a broad understanding of CCH in the context of individual patients, populations, and communities. This model for curricular integration can be applied to other topics such as social determinants of health, health equity, disability studies, and structural racism.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1938-808X
1938-808X
DOI:10.1097/ACM.0000000000004376