Creating Environmental Health Leaders When Educators Are Learning Too

Elizabeth Cerceo; Nagaswami Vasan

doi:10.1177/23821205231219162

Creating Environmental Health Leaders When Educators Are Learning Too

J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2023 Dec 18:10:23821205231219162. doi: 10.1177/23821205231219162. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Elizabeth Cerceo¹, Nagaswami Vasan²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Medicine, Cooper University Healthcare, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, New Jersey, USA.
² Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, New Jersey, USA.

Abstract

The climate crisis is upon us, already exacting a health cost, with likely acceleration over our lifetimes. Our existing medical curricula do not adequately prepare medical students to deal with climate health nor to be leaders in the public health sphere. Current faculty have themselves not often been exposed to climate health training nor often to leadership training. This affords a unique opportunity for creative implementation of strategies to educate both faculty and students on how leadership skill building can complement the science and policy of climate health.

Keywords: climate medicine; health and climate change; medical education.