Climate Change: what will it mean for education and training for rural and remote doctors?

There is much scholarly evidence that climate change will be the biggest threat to health in the 21st century. Rural and remove communities include many of the world's most climate-vulnerable groups. The world's sentinel health workforce organisations such as the World Medical Association, are now calling for better education and training of health professionals for climate change. This presentation builds on reviews of the salient scholarly and applied evidence, as well as the presenter's previous publications in rural medical education and climate change, to offer new ideas about what climate change will mean for education and training for rural and remote doctors. In doing so, it takes a 'whole-of-system' approach, looking at how climate change will affect all the different parts of that education and training system. First, it explores what climate change will most likely mean for the governance and quality assurance aspects of rural and remote medical education and training. Second, it details what climate change could mean for the way such education and training is developed, and third, how it is delivered. Fourth, it examines how climate change is likely to affect the material infrasrucutre (buildings and physical assets) used in rural and remote medical education and training. Fifth, it explores how climate change might affect the people - such as students, patients, medical ecuation and trainers - in that system. Sixth, it explains how climate change might shape the funding or economic aspects of rural and remote medical education. The presenter concludes that while the impacts of climate change will be pervasive, there are many new developments occurring around the world that offer practical models of how the rural and remote medical education and training sector can both adapt to climate change and play a role in addressing the human causes of global warming.