NOSM U Celebrates Earth Day 2022

My good friend Dr. Gary Bota is an emergency physician who lives and works in Sudbury. Gary is also an environmental activist, and over the last two years, he’s been patiently and diligently planting seeds at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM). One of the outcomes of his labours was held yesterday: The NOSM University Earth Day Celebration. Amidst the speeches, presentations, and videos, there was a quieter interlude. Led by Bota, NOSM’s Dean Dr. Sarita Verma, and others, the NOSM community across Northern Ontario participated in a reading of the Planetary Health Pledge.

‘First, do no harm” is a precept in health care that dates back to the days of Hippocrates. Physicians and other health professionals can’t always cure those who are sick, but at the very least, we should avoid harming them, through the things we do or fail to do.      

The constitution of the World Health Organization declares that all people have a fundamental right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. The discipline of Planetary Health recognizes that people can’t be healthy on a deranged planet with an unstable climate system, and that to do no harm in the 21st century must include protection of our planetary home, Earth.

Here are some excerpts from the Planetary Health Pledge:   

I solemnly pledge to dedicate my life to the service of humanity, and to the protection of natural systems on which human health depends . . . The health of people, their communities, and the planet will be my first consideration and I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, as well as reverence for the diversity of life on Earth . . . To do no harm, I will respect the autonomy and dignity of all persons in adopting an approach to maintaining and creating health which focuses on prevention of harm to people and planet . . . I will advocate for equity and justice by actively addressing environmental, social, and structural determinants of health while protecting the natural systems that underpin a viable planet for future generations . . . I will strive to be a role model for my patients and society by embodying planetary health principles in my own life . . .

NOSM is a unique medical school. Its students, faculty, and educational facilities are distributed throughout Northern Ontario, from Thunder Bay to North Bay to James Bay. The school strives to produce physicians who understand and can serve the needs of Northern communities, where the mental and physical health impacts of climate change are already substantial. This mandate gives NOSM University both serious responsibilities and tremendous opportunities.

NOSM University can become a Center of Excellence in the new discipline of Planetary Health. Despite its geographical challenges, it can strive to become an international leader in sustainable medical education and health care. It can ensure that its graduates are not only medical experts in regard to the impact of climate change on the health of their patients, but also exemplars of climate-health advocacy and action in all facets of their personal, professional, and political lives. It can attract and support clinician-scientists who are engaged in climate-health research right here in Northern Ontario. It can learn from and work with Indigenous peoples, to protect the water and land and air we share with all life on this planet.

An Earth Day celebration and a Planetary Health pledge are wonderful beginnings, but the real story will be told in the ongoing actions of the entire NOSM community. We all share the calling to promote, restore, and sustain human health; we cannot, in good conscience, continue to harm the planet upon whose health all human health depends.

Thank you, Gary, for planting seeds at NOSM. Let’s watch them sprout, and water them well.