Medical Students

Connecting doctors and medical students with their role in environmental protection and stewardship using the language of medical ethics and human rights
by Jen Moran, 1st Year Medical Student, ANU Many doctors and medical students appear hesitant to become advocates for environmental protection and sustainable development. This is not to say they do not care, but that they may not see the connection between the practice of medicine and the health of the environment. But this does beg the question, if our role in the doctor-patient relationship is the commitment to the relief of suffering, then how can we deny our responsibility to contribute to a healthy environment? Human suffering and the state of our environment are intrinsically linked. By ensuring that our environment is healthy—our water is clean, our soil is fertile, our exposure to harmful chemicals is minimal, and our ecosystems are in good working order—we are in essence providing the ultimate public health intervention.

To open this medical student section of the Doctors for the Environment web page, we are printing two articles that will illustrate to you that global warming is one of the major health issues facing humanity. In using the term ‘health issue’ we are using the word health in its widest sense for the World Health Organisation has defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

The article on “The Worlds Fragile Islands” is about global warming which will lead to sea level rise and the inundation of many small islands around the world. As you read this article, please ask yourself ‘what are the health implications?’. Then at the end of the article there is a commentary in which this question is answered. I think you will see why Doctors for the Environment has made global warming its priority in lobbying Ministers and Members of Parliament prior to the coming election.

Considered from the low-lying point of view of Pacific islanders or circumpolar-dwelling Inuit, the Kyoto Protocol on environmental protection seems an exploitative deal between those in the North who already pollute heavily and those in the South who want to do the same.

By AGNÈS SINAI *

Some 600 idyllic islands in the South Pacific make up Micronesia; perhaps not so idyllic any more, as in recent years half of the 150,000 inhabitants have had their houses damaged or destroyed by storms more frequent and violent than before. Sea levels rose in the region through the second half of the 20th century, and this, linked with exceptionally high tides and unpredictable rain, exacerbated the intensity of the storms. As coastal erosion increases, salt creeps into the water table and ruins plantations, while rising temperatures nurture parasites that attack copra plants.