The Medicine for a Changing Planet curriculum: a mixed methods evaluation

There is a need to more fully integrate Planetary Health and One Health principles into current medical education programs. The Medicine for a Changing Planet (MCP) curriculum is a set of online, freely available, competency-based clinical cases developed by the authors to address this gap. This study was conducted to pilot and evaluate the MCP curriculum using a mixed methods approach.

Residents were invited to participate in interactive didactic sessions during which the authors piloted the content of the 11 MCP cases and collected feedback. Each session included a pre-test, case delivery using one of the MCP slide sets, and a post-test. Feedback was obtained using a structured questionnaire and focus group discussions.

Total attendance across all didactic sessions was 87, including 57 unique participants. The median pre-test score was 67%, and the median post-test score was 83% (p < 0.01). All participants agreed that understanding how environmental changes, including climate change, impact human health is important. The majority agreed that the case enhanced their understanding of the topic and that the material was useful for their clinical practice. All agreed that the case material and clinical concepts were clear. Themes that emerged from focus group discussions included (1) the importance of integrating Planetary Health and One Health principles into medical education, (2) enhancing relevance to the local context, (3) balancing detail with overarching principles, (4) maximizing the impact of the "Beyond the Clinic" and "Call to Action" sections, (5) optimizing content delivery, and (6) balancing action and despair in the face of a changing environment.

The MCP curriculum was effective in increasing understanding and recognition of how Planetary Health and One Health approaches can improve patient care, and there was strong demand to integrate this content into medical education.