Your Medical History Might Someday Include ‘Climate Change’ | WIRED

Last summer, a doctor wrote “climate change” in his patient’s chart. But is medicine really ready to address systemic health impacts?

Save this story Save this story Last June, a heat dome settled over British Columbia, shattering the region’s heat records for five consecutive days and hitting temperatures of over 120 degrees. The dome was responsible for at least 500 human deaths ( and potentially a billion marine creature casualties ) and stretched the health systems in the region to their breaking point. And at one rural hospital in Nelson, British Columbia, doctor Kyle Merritt began to feel like there was more he should do than simply treat all the patients coming in with heat stroke and exhaustion. “I was upset with wha

related reading

• It’s Time for Medical Schools to Introduce Climate Change into Their Curricula - PMCncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Climate change and health informatics: pilot survey of perspectives across the field - PMCncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Planetary Health in CanMEDS 2025 - PMCncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• We wish we’d written that: STAT staffers' favorite stories of 2022statnews.com
• Climate change is a societal issue. Why is teaching it limited to memorizing science? | Philstar.comphilstar.com
• The History of Hysteria and How it Impacts You | Planned Parenthood of Floridaplannedparenthood.org
• Climate Change & Medical Schools | IFMSAifmsa.org
• Clinical Ethics and Law | UW Department of Bioethics & Humanitiesdepts.washington.edu
• 805: The Florida Experiment - This American Lifethisamericanlife.org
• Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change - The New York Timesnytimes.com
• Climate change and health: three grand challenges | Nature Medicinenature.com
• Digital health for climate change mitigation and response: a scoping review - PMCncbi.nlm.nih.gov