BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Planetary Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1614872
Exploring faculty perspectives toward developing a planetary health curriculum for Family Medicine residents at the University of Toronto
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
- 2Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 3Michael Garron Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 4The Wilson Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 5Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- 6Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Background: Climate change is the greatest threat to human health of this century, yet limited formal curriculum exists within postgraduate family medicine (FM) programs across Canada. As outlined by The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) Guides for Improvement of Family Medicine Training (GIFT) report, learners have called for planetary health (including climate change) education and recommended a curriculum framework. This study aimed to understand University of Toronto Department of Family Medicine faculty attitudes around implementing a planetary health curriculum within the FM residency program.Methods: This study used a qualitative descriptive study design. Thirty faculty members from various teaching, curriculum lead roles, and leadership positions were invited to participate in virtual semi-structured video interviews. Data was collected and analyzed using thematic analysis.Results: Thirteen interviews were conducted between May-September 2022. Participants perceived planetary health was relevant to FM, but most were unfamiliar with the term. Four overarching themes were developed from the data: 1) curriculum implementation, 2) curriculum development, 3) barriers, and 4) attitudes. Barriers to integrating PH learning objectives include a lack of faculty knowledge and skills, burnout, and an already saturated FM curriculum.To address the climate change crisis, there is need for a planetary health curriculum, yet faculty have a limited understanding of this topic. This knowledge gap is one of multiple barriers identified in this study toward curriculum implementation. This study provides insight and suggestions for tools that may aid planetary health curriculum development and implementation.
Keywords: Medical Education, curriculum development, Community Health/Public Health, faculty development, Planetary health
Received: 20 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lee, Ramdawar, Green, Adilman and Mangalji. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: KitShan Lee, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
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