CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Climate Change into Health Education and PromotionView all articles
Empowering Medical Students in a Climate Crisis: Elective Curriculum for Undergraduate Medical Education
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, United States
- 2Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine,, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, United States
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Introduction: Climate change has a widespread impact on human disease and population health. Despite calls for action from physician organizations, medical schools have been slow to integrate climate and health education into their curricula. Curriculum Design: We designed and implemented a medical student elective focused on climate and health. The course consisted of expert-led didactics and small group discussions using case-based or journal article– based sessions to explore the intersection of climate change and health. Qualitative student feedback on the course was collected with a RedCap form after each iteration of the course. Results: Upon course completion, students reported greater comfort in understanding the impact of climate change on the health of their community and recognizing how climate change exacerbates health disparities. Students also noted that they hoped to integrate what they learned in their future medical practice. Discussion: This course demonstrates a feasible model for incorporating climate and health education into medical curricula that may be used by other medical schools. Such educational interventions may better prepare future physicians to address the health consequences of climate change and promote health equity.
Keywords: Medical Education, Medical students, Curriculum, climate, Public Health
Received: 04 Aug 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Baldwin, Shelby, Hoyer, Bates, Modi and Govind. 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:
Margaret Baldwin, margaret.baldwin@utsouthwestern.edu
Anusha Govind, anusha.govind@utsouthwestern.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.