“The trouble is cardiologists will teach about stents and statins. They won’t teach you about sedentary lifestyles and about active transport and particulate pollution and all of these other things because they don’t know it themselves … if it was appearing in every single thing it wouldn’t take long before medical students are going ‘I seem to be hearing exactly the same thing in every subject – everything I’m hearing about the causes of cancer seems to be the same thing as causing lung disease which seems to be the same thing as causing coronary vascular disease and strokes – so why aren’t we doing something about that?”
~ An educator on teachers lack of knowledge on sustainable healthcare
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As the international drive for healthcare professionals to embrace sustainability gains momentum, the UK has taken the lead. In the General Medical Council’s document Outcomes for graduates 2018(“Outcomes”), the medical regulator has placed a new obligation on medical education (General Medical Council 2018). Doctors qualifying or registering in the UK will be required to understand and apply the principles of sustainable healthcare to medical practice. Teaching this is the responsibility of medical schools and of doctors who are involved in medical education. Yet sustainability is an emerging concept to many in the medical profession, although the increasingly unsustainable nature of the healthcare system and potential ways to address this may already be familiar.”
More on Fulfilling a new obligation: Teaching and learning of sustainable healthcare in the medical education curriculum (2019) via Tun.
Download the Climate Change Toolkit for Healthcare Professionals here.
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UBC Family Practice Residency Program: Abbotsford-Mission Site 