
Our patients. Our responsibility.
Clinicians and healthcare leaders share strategies for combatting the climate crisis in keynotes and symposium panels.
About the Initiative
The Climate Crisis and Clinical Practice Initiative was launched in Boston on February 13, 2020 with the first Climate Crisis and Clinical Practice Symposium. The inaugural Symposium brought together hospital leaders from across Greater Boston and Harvard Medical School to discuss the local implications of the climate crisis on clinical practice and health care delivery. The Symposium was co-hosted by the The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard C-CHANGE), and the Harvard Medical School.
Under the newly launched Initiative, seven additional centers across and outside the United States have committed to bringing their health care systems together. Regional events have already been held in Northern California (spearheaded by Stanford University and University of California, San Francisco), Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland Clinic Foundation), and Atlanta, Georgia (Emory University). In addition, the Initiative has partnered with The Institute for Exposomic Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for the event “Improving Patient Outcomes in the Dual Crises of Climate Change and COVID-19.”
Despite the irony, I often describe our current knowledge of the health effects of climate crisis as an iceberg. Though we see a peak above the water’s surface, there is much more to fear from the larger mass beneath — the effects that we haven’t yet identified.
Renee Salas, MD, MPH
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The Climate Crisis & Clinical Practice Inaugural Symposium
February 13, 2020
AGENDA
12:30 PM | REGISTRATION & COFFEE
1:00 PM | WELCOME REMARKS
Eric Rubin, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, The New England Journal of Medicine
David Golan, MD, PhD
Dean for Research Operations and Global Programs, Harvard Medical School
1:15 PM | OPENING KEYNOTE: WHY THE CLIMATE CRISIS MATTERS FOR PRACTICE
Renee N. Salas, MD, MPH, MS
Harvard Global Health Institute, Harvard C-CHANGE, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
1:40 PM | CLINICAL PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS AND SOLUTIONS
Moderator: Aaron Bernstein, MD, MPH
Harvard C-CHANGE, Harvard Global Health Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital
Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH
Primary Care, Cambridge Health Alliance
Gary Belkin, MD, PhD, MPH
Psychiatry, Visiting Scientist for Harvard C-CHANGE
Regina LaRocque, MD, MPH
Infectious Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital
Lucy Marcil, MD, MPH
Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center
Mary Rice, MD, MPH
Pulmonary and Critical Care, Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center
3:10 PM | COFFEE BREAK
3:30 PM | OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVING PRACTICE IN THE ERA OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Moderator: Gina McCarthy, MS
Board of Advisors, Harvard C-CHANGE
Nicholas S. Hill, MD
Chief, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Division, Tufts University School of Medicine
Bernard Jones, EdM
Vice President, Public Policy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Patrice Nicholas, DNSc, DHL, MPH, RN, NP-C, FAAN
Director, Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health at MGH Institute of Health Professions
Kathleen E. Walsh, MPH
President & CEO, Boston Medical Center
4:30 PM | THE POWER OF ACTION BY HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Caren Solomon, MD, MPH
The New England Journal of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
4:45 PM | CLOSING KEYNOTE: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Aaron Bernstein, MD, MPH
Harvard C-CHANGE, Harvard Global Health Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital
5:00 – 7:00 PM | RECEPTION