Climate change is the biggest health threat this century — here’s how medical schools are adapting
2 min read
On the lakefront campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which in 60 years could have average temperatures resembling those felt currently in Kansas City nearly 500 miles to its south, the next wave of aspiring doctors settles in for a “Climate Change and Medicine” elective filled to capacity.
Students at Wisconsin learn under Dr. Jonathan Patz, who had already been consulting for the United Nations on accelerating man-made climate change’s health impacts decades ago. The students examine, for instance, heat-related mortality, as well as the healthy “upside” of adapting to the effects of climate change. Reducing one’s reliance on cars and eating smarter benefits the human body and Mother Earth alike, Patz argues.
Wisconsin is just one of roughly two dozen medical schools leading — although only typically by offering a few courses — in the training of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other practitioners who will take to the front lines of diagnosing and treating the impact of climate change. That impact is showing up increasingly in emergencies, such as wildfires, and in complicated-pregnancy statistics even in developed nations. More broadly, the spread of toxins, asthma cases, cardiovascular disease and Lyme disease is on the rise, all part of what The Lancet has deemed the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. […]
