Building Climate Change into Medical Education: A Society of General Internal Medicine Position Statement

AbstractBuilding expertise in climate and planetary health among healthcare professionals cannot come with greater urgency as the threats from climate change become increasingly apparent. Current and future healthcare professionals —particularly internists—will increasingly need to understand the interconnectedness of natural systems and human health to better serve their patients longitudinally. Despite this, few national medical societies and accreditation bodies espouse frameworks for climate change and planetary health –related education at the undergraduate (UME), graduate (GME), and continuing (CME) medical education level. As a community of medical educators with an enduring interest in climate change and planetary health, the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) recognizes the need to explicitly defin e structured educational opportunities and core competencies in both UME and GME as well as pathways for faculty development. In this position statement, we build from the related SGIM Climate and Health position statement, and review and synthesize existing position statements made by US-based medi cal societies and accreditation bodies that focus on climate change and planetary health–related medical education, identify gaps using Bloom’s Hierarchy, and provide recommendations on behalf of SGIM regarding the development of climate and planetary health curricula development. Identified gap s include (1) limited systematic approach to climate and planeta...
Source: Journal of General Internal Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Source Type: research