Medical schools need to consider planetary health now

The sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ought to be recommended, if not mandatory, reading for healthcare students. Despite this, medical education, however, often still does not cover the connection between human and planetary health.How can such an important topic be omitted from medical curriculums? How can capitalism, extractivism, and colonialism remain unquestioned as drivers of illness; as emphasised by multiple choice questions seeming to place more value on rare genetic substitutions and eponymous syndromes.Although a statement on planetary health and education from the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) asserts that “Health professionals must be prepared to deliver system-wide changes to mitigate and adapt to the ecological crisis,” current medical education still fails to emphasise the role of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the climate crisis. Students might learn about the physiology of gas exchange at a molecular level yet little is said about the…
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