Planetary Health Rounds: A novel educational model for integrating healthcare sustainability education into postgraduate medical curricula

Introduction

Climate change poses a major threat to public health, necessitating significant reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to limit its effects. The healthcare sector itself is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, particularly in high-income countries such as Canada and the United States. Providing medical learners with education on this topic has been identified as an important component of efforts to reduce GHG emissions; however, there is a lack of tools available both for providing education on healthcare sustainability, and for integrating this topic into postgraduate medical curricula.

Case Presentation

The Planetary Health Rounds are an educational initiative aimed at integrating climate change concepts and healthcare sustainability into the Internal Medicine residency curriculum, using a case-analysis format in conjunction with the open-source HealthcareLCA Database (https://healthcarelca.com/database), a living repository of data on healthcare-associated GHG emissions.

Methods

Learners conduct a case analysis of an internal medicine patient and estimate the total emissions associated with their admission, which they then present at an end-of-rotation teaching session, with discussions centering on the link between climate change and health as well as reducing emissions.

Discussion

The Planetary Health Rounds, implemented in 2023, have been well-received by trainee physicians despite some challenges having been encountered. These include service demands impacting participation, a lack of emissions data for internal medicine-related care, issues with the generalizability of said data, and consistent access to a planetary health expertise during rounds.

Conclusion

This initiative provides a novel way of incorporating teaching on climate change and health into postgraduate training curriculums.