Putting planetary health at the core of the medical curriculum in Amsterdam
Iris Martine Blom, I. Rupp, Irene M. de Graaf, Berber Kapitein, Anne Timmermans, Nicolaas H. Sperna Weiland
Abstract
Health systems urgently need to transform and build resilience against the consequences of climate change.1 The future and the current health workforces have an essential role in this process and, to effectively capacitate them, researchers have called for the inclusion of planetary health in the medical curriculum.2,3 However, in 2020, only 15% of surveyed medical schools worldwide had incorporated elements of climate change in their curricula.4 Heeding the need for change, a multidisciplinary team at the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), comprising a public health physician, an anaesthesiologist, a gynaecologist, a paediatrician, and a final-year medical student, came together to set up a module on planetary health with the aim of integrating this topic in everyday clinical practice.