Press Release: Environmental Issues Impacting Public Health Being Offered at Dell Medical School at UT Austin

Environmental Issues Impacting Public Health Being Offered at Dell Medical School at UT Austin

Designed and Taught by Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility, New Course Addresses Climate Change and Enriches Medical Student Training
Austin, Texas, March 3, 2020

Environmental Issues that Impact Public Health: What Every Physician Should Know is an enrichment elective being offered for the first time to students at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. Made possible through funding from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, and taught by Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility (Texas PSR), the course is one of the few offered on this topic in U.S. medical schools.
Physicians and nurses, including current Texas PSR board members, are donating their time to teach the course. Coursework will prepare students to recognize and treat conditions caused by the impacts of climate change, air and water pollution, household toxics, and energy and food production, with attention to specific populations at risk.
The course will expose students to the fields of environmental health and public health practice and benefit physicians, their patients and their communities.
Topics to be addressed over 10 class sessions:
1: Health effects of climate change. 2: Air and Water Quality & Specific Health Impacts of Pollution 3: Energy Production and Health
4: Healthy Food Systems 5: Impacts on Mental Health 6: Everyday Toxic Chemicals: Mitigating Risk 7: Applications to Clinical Practice 8: How to Be an Informed and Effective Advocate
One goal is to replicate the course at other Texas medical schools in 2021-22 and eventually adapt the course material for presentations at conferences, community clinics and in other professional settings.

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