Doctors told to avoid traditional asthma inhalers because they generate greenhouse gas

Doctors are to be taught to avoid giving asthma patients traditional inhalers if possible because of the greenhouse gases they generate.

Medics will be encouraged to prescribe inhalers that use powder instead of gas where appropriate as part of efforts to tackle the climate crisis within patient care.

The initiative – overseen by the European Network on Climate and Health Education, which is made up of a group of 25 medical schools led by the University of Glasgow – will bring climate lessons into the curriculum of more than 10,000 students.

Dr Camille Huser, of the University of Glasgow and co-chairman of the network, told The Guardian: “The doctors of the future will see a different array of presentations and diseases that they are not seeing now. They need to be aware of that so they can recognise them.”

Students will be taught “green prescribing”, in which doctors should encourage patients to take up activities such as community gardening and tree planting. This is alongside “active travel”, which includes walking or cycling rather than driving. Both activities offer health benefits to individuals while being positive for the environment.

Climate ‘infused’ throughout curriculum

Dr Huser said urging people to look after their health had “huge benefits for them personally” and would “reduce emissions if they require less input from the health system”.

Students will be shown how changes in managing a condition can have an environmental impact, according to The Guardian. For example, by keeping asthma under control so that gas inhalers are used less, or by switching patients to dry powder where appropriate.

The network will attempt to influence bodies that set the national curriculum, such as the General Medical Council in the UK, so that climate crisis becomes a mandatory part of medical students’ education.

Dr Huser said the current teaching at medical schools often consisted of a single lecture or module on the subject, whereas the network envisages environmental considerations being “infused” throughout the timetable.

She said: “Climate change doesn’t necessarily create a new range of diseases we haven’t seen before, but it exacerbates the ones that do exist. Diabetes, for example, is not something that people link to climate change, but the symptoms and complications become more frequent and worse for people in a world where the climate has changed.”

Environemt ‘piotal’ to doctors’ thinking

Prof Iain McInnes, also a network co-chairman from the University of Glasgow, said its aim was “building the conversation into the medical curriculum so that the doctors of the future are literate in this conversation”.

Prof McInnes said: “This is as pivotal and critical to their thinking as it is to manage obesity, smoking and other environmental challenges. It is simply part of the DNA of being a doctor.”

This summer was the hottest on record in Europe and changes in the climate are increasing pressure on health services.

Extreme weather and pollution can affect heart and lung conditions and cause disease-spreading insects – such as mosquitoes – to expand their range because of changes in temperature and rainfall patterns.

Antimicrobial resistance, in which pathogens evolve so that existing drugs no longer treat them effectively, is also being exacerbated by climate breakdown, and Dr Huser said this should be reflected in teaching.

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