Introduction/background: A large body of research now exists on the subject of what climate change will mean for healthcare needs. There are also calls for health education and training to better prepare health professionals for a climate-changing world. The keynote in this literature is the importance of adaptive practices for responding to climate change. It is known that health professionals will need to respond to a wide range of direct and indirect consequences of climate change, requiring not only content knowledge but also flexibility and responsiveness to diverse regional conditions as part of complex health problem-solving— adaptation. This will be particularly important in rural and remote education and training. However, little has been written exploring what this means for the ‘bread and butter’ practices of curriculum design, teaching and assessment. Purpose/objectives: This presentation examines how adaptive practices for climate change can be a part of education and training programs for health professionals. Issues for exploration/ideas for discussion: The presentation identifies clinical and non clinical dimensions of adaption for climate change, particularly as it relates to rural and remote health practice. It provides practical suggestions for designing curriculum, teaching and assessment that helps health professionals be adaptive in a climate-changing world. Using the education literature on best practice, as well as available models such as the Primary Curriculum document of the Australian College of Rural and Remote medicine (ACRRM) as a point of departure, it offers examples of competencies, teaching approaches, as well as assessment models, useful to ensuring health professionals can adapt to the new conditions brought by climate change. Conclusions: Meeting the challenges of climate change in health professional education and training will involve a questioning of some approaches to education and training and an embracing of others. The practical demands of designing curriculum, teaching and assessment that helps health professionals adapt to climate change will reinforce and extend existing knowledge of best practice in education and training.

Item Type:	Conference Extract
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Curriculum and pedagogy
Research Field:	Medicine, nursing and health curriculum and pedagogy
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health)
Objective Field:	Rural and remote area health
UTAS Author:	Bell, EJ (Associate Professor Erica Bell)
ID Code:	60683
Year Published:	2009
Deposited By:	UTAS Centre for Rural Health
Deposited On:	2010-02-16
Last Modified:	2010-02-16
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