Environment 3
Track 10
| Sunday, October 29, 2023 |
| 10:35 AM - 12:30 PM |
| Meeting Room C4.2 |
Speaker
Dr Catherine Pendrey
General Practitioner
WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza
Climate change is impacting our patient’s health more and more – how can we teach about it in family practice?
10:35 AM - 11:30 AMSummary
Background:
The World Health Organisation has declared that “Climate change is the greatest threat of the 21st century.” Indeed, the impacts of climate change and environmental unsustainability are more and more evident every day in the practice of family medicine. Extreme heat, air pollution, extreme weather events and vector borne diseases have a range of physical and mental health consequences across the full life spectrum. For many conditions, especially non-communicable diseases, increasing focus on preventative strategies (including diet and exercise) has benefits for human and environmental health. To adapt to these changes, family doctors and medical educators need to become familiar with how to treat and teach about new and evolving clinical presentations and modifiable risk factors. In response to these changes, medical education is adapting to incorporate climate change and health and more broadly, planetary health, into medical education.
Objectives:
o To enable participants to become familiar with resources relevant to support the delivery of medical education addressing climate change and planetary health.
o To provide participants an opportunity to practice developing educational activities on common presentations relevant to climate change and planetary health.
Content:
o This session will begin with a presentation-style overview of common clinical presentations affected by climate change and recently developed medical education resources addressing climate change and planetary health.
o Participants will then move into small groups where, supported by a facilitator, they will have the opportunity to use these resources to develop a mini-teaching session on one of these presentations, such as heat-related illness, air pollution and respiratory disease, effects of extreme heat and air pollution on pregnancy, Japanese encephalitis, eco-anxiety and planetary health co-benefits.
o Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their experience, share learnings and provide feedback on their experience.
The World Health Organisation has declared that “Climate change is the greatest threat of the 21st century.” Indeed, the impacts of climate change and environmental unsustainability are more and more evident every day in the practice of family medicine. Extreme heat, air pollution, extreme weather events and vector borne diseases have a range of physical and mental health consequences across the full life spectrum. For many conditions, especially non-communicable diseases, increasing focus on preventative strategies (including diet and exercise) has benefits for human and environmental health. To adapt to these changes, family doctors and medical educators need to become familiar with how to treat and teach about new and evolving clinical presentations and modifiable risk factors. In response to these changes, medical education is adapting to incorporate climate change and health and more broadly, planetary health, into medical education.
Objectives:
o To enable participants to become familiar with resources relevant to support the delivery of medical education addressing climate change and planetary health.
o To provide participants an opportunity to practice developing educational activities on common presentations relevant to climate change and planetary health.
Content:
o This session will begin with a presentation-style overview of common clinical presentations affected by climate change and recently developed medical education resources addressing climate change and planetary health.
o Participants will then move into small groups where, supported by a facilitator, they will have the opportunity to use these resources to develop a mini-teaching session on one of these presentations, such as heat-related illness, air pollution and respiratory disease, effects of extreme heat and air pollution on pregnancy, Japanese encephalitis, eco-anxiety and planetary health co-benefits.
o Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their experience, share learnings and provide feedback on their experience.
Takeaways
After participating in this session it is expected that participants will be more confident developing and delivering medical education sessions on planetary health-related presentations, and be familiar with where to access evidenced-based planetary health education resources.
Biography
Dr Catherine Pendrey is a GP currently undertaking a Masters of Applied Epidemiology at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza. She has significant experience working in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations in remote regions of the Northern Territory in Australia. Catherine has worked as a medical educator and has broad interests in public health, including social determinants and planetary health. Catherine is a former member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Region, and is a current member of the Research and Policy Committee of the Climate and Health Alliance.
A/Prof Alan Abelsohn
Provost
Department Of Family And Community Medicine, University Of Toronto
How is Climate Change affecting you and your patients; what can you do in your clinical practice and your community?
11:35 AM - 12:30 PMSummary
This presentation will offer a brief introduction and overview of climate change and health. The main activity will be an exploration, in small gropus of 6-10 people, of the following questions:
1. Do you think climate change is affecting the health of your patients, and how? What health impacts have you seen in your patients and communities?
2. What effects do you expect to see over the next 2 decades?
3. How do you deal with the idea of catastrophic climate change?
Some common coping mechanisms include denial; anxiety,depression and hopelessness, or taking action.
4. How have you changed in your clinical practice in order to clinically address what you see?
5. Are you engaged in any climate change and health issues, projects or interventions: in the healthcare community or the larger community where you live?
1. Do you think climate change is affecting the health of your patients, and how? What health impacts have you seen in your patients and communities?
2. What effects do you expect to see over the next 2 decades?
3. How do you deal with the idea of catastrophic climate change?
Some common coping mechanisms include denial; anxiety,depression and hopelessness, or taking action.
4. How have you changed in your clinical practice in order to clinically address what you see?
5. Are you engaged in any climate change and health issues, projects or interventions: in the healthcare community or the larger community where you live?
Takeaways
1. Describe the impacts of climate change on their patients and their community
2. Identify their coping strategies in relation to the threat of climate change
3. Develop an approach to actions that they can take in response to climate change in their clinical practice and their community
2. Identify their coping strategies in relation to the threat of climate change
3. Develop an approach to actions that they can take in response to climate change in their clinical practice and their community
Biography
Alan Abelsohn is an Associate Professor in Department of Family and Community Medicine, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto;.
He is past-chair and Provost of the Working Party on the Environment for the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA).
He has coordinated an International Air Health Train the Trainer program with WONCA. He is consulting with WHO on Capacity Building for Healthcare Practitioners about air pollution and health.
