Serving Up Climate Education: An Innovative Resident Curriculum Addressing Climate Change through Plant-Based Solutions

The climate crisis is increasingly recognized as a health crisis with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring climate change the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century.

Over 70 medical organizations have declared climate change an emergency, notably the American Medical Association (AMA) passing a resolution in 2019 calling on educational leaders to include climate health content across the continuum of medical education.

Despite the urgency of this issue, content is inconsistently incorporated into medical curricula, leaving residents unprepared to tackle the climate emergency.

Encouraging patients to adopt guideline-recommended, plant-based dietary patterns can improve patient outcomes as well as reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land and water utilization, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution.

The EAT-Lancet Commission recommends a substantial reduction in red meat consumption and a significant increase in plant-based food consumption to achieve healthy and sustainable diets by 2050.

A notable evidence gap arises from the inadequacy of training for residents, students, and medical professionals in counseling patients on the effects of climate change and the potential benefits of adopting plant-based diets. In a survey-based study, only 22% of students believed they received sufficient nutrition training in medical school, a concern exacerbated by the absence of formal nutrition requirements in most postgraduate programs which generally provide fewer than 20 hours of nutrition training.

While progress has been made in integrating climate health into undergraduate medical education, graduate medical education (GME) faces unique challenges.

Our educational session reviewed recommendations of the EAT-Lancet report, advocating for a substantial reduction in red meat consumption and an increase in plant-based food consumption in the context of climate change and environmental factors. We then assessed resident attitudes and knowledge after this brief intervention.