Doctors will be trained to consider the “climate impact” of asthma inhalers under a new European-wide curriculum being developed that will “infuse” environmental considerations throughout the timetable. The Telegraph has more.
Future doctors will be expected to take the climate impact of inhalers into account, medical school leaders have said.
They will also have more training on how to recognise and treat heatstroke, while mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever will become a more prominent part of the curriculum at European medical schools.
Insiders stressed that the curriculum is yet to be finalised and advice surrounding inhalers is just one option that could be considered.
The initiative – overseen by the European Network on Climate and Health Education, which is made up of a group of 25 medical schools led by the University of Glasgow – will bring climate lessons into the curriculum of more than 10,000 students.
Dr. Camille Huser, of the University of Glasgow and co-chairman of the network, told the Guardian: “The doctors of the future will see a different array of presentations and diseases that they are not seeing now. They need to be aware of that so they can recognise them.”
Students will be taught “green prescribing”, in which doctors should encourage patients to take up activities such as community gardening and tree planting. This is alongside “active travel”, which includes walking or cycling rather than driving. Both activities offer health benefits to individuals while being positive for the environment. …
Dr. Huser said the current teaching at medical schools often consisted of a single lecture or module on the subject, whereas the network envisages environmental considerations being “infused” throughout the timetable.
She said: “Climate change doesn’t necessarily create a new range of diseases we haven’t seen before, but it exacerbates the ones that do exist. Diabetes, for example, is not something that people link to climate change, but the symptoms and complications become more frequent and worse for people in a world where the climate has changed.”
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