This year’s Teale essay prize for trainees winner is rheumatology registrar and clinical PhD fellow Dr Mrinalini Dey. In this piece she talks about her winning contribution - '"Consider the seasons": the climate crisis, its impact on healthcare, and the role of the physician.’
The theme of this year’s Teale essay prize for trainees called upon us to consider the climate crisis, its impact on healthcare and the role of us, as the physician, within this. This aligns closely with the Royal College of Physicians’ growing campaign on sustainability, especially within healthcare. However, the impact of the climate on the health of individuals and society as a whole is not a recent phenomenon. Even Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, was writing about the direct and indirect effects of weather systems and the environment on human health and wellbeing.
In more recent years, catastrophes such as crop failures, unusual weather events and the expansion of food-, water- and vector-borne diseases have all been attributed to the worsening climate crisis, highlighting just how far-reaching its effects truly are. Such events lead not only directly affect human health, for example through trauma and complications of infections, but also indirectly, through increasing prevalence of cardiovascular and respiratory conditions as well as mental health impacts.
This essay discusses the expanding global detrimental effects on health and healthcare due to climate change, as well as the resulting social inequities. In the latter half of the essay, I discuss the contribution of healthcare systems to global warming, as well as how we, as physicians and leaders, can work together to mitigate the effects of climate change in order to advocate for, and ultimately protect the health of, our patients.
Read Dr Mrinalini Dey’s essay in full.
Dr Mrinalini Dey
Teale essay prize winner
