Empowering medical educators to teach planetary health: development and outcomes of a curriculum integration training

Abstract

Planetary Health (PH) content is increasingly recognized as essential for medical education. For longitudinal integration across the curriculum, medical educators can serve as change agents and multipliers. A targeted training that conveys both PH knowledge and pedagogical skills can empower medical educators to incorporate PH topics into their teaching. Following the curriculum development cycle by Kern, we developed a training for medical educators of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin teaching in the medical curriculum. The learning objective was to enable medical educators to effectively integrate PH content into their courses. The program was delivered in a blended-learning format: input on the interconnectedness between human and planetary health was provided online via a learning platform prior to the in-person unit (1 teaching unit [TU]). The face-to-face workshop (6 TU) gave input on Planetary Health as well as didactic input and facilitated discussion of personal experiences with climate change and its relevance to teaching, thereby enhancing participants’ change agency. Further, participants developed teaching materials for their own courses and tested them via a micro-teaching exercise. As follow-up the participants revised their teaching materials-based feedback on their micro teaching (1 TU). The impact of the workshop was evaluated according to Kirkpatrick’s framework. Eighteen medical educators participated across three workshops, with 13 completing the follow-up questionnaire. Seventeen participants (94% response rate) completed the post-workshop evaluation. Participants reported satisfaction with the content, structure, and practical relevance of the course and rated their knowledge gain as moderate to high. Fifteen participants intended to integrate the developed teaching materials into their courses, and 14 planned to share their materials with colleagues. One year later, nine participants (50%) responded to a follow-up survey; five had integrated the materials into their teaching, and three had shared them with colleagues. A targeted training that actively prepares and supports the transfer of knowledge into teaching practice is well received by medical educators. PH content was integrated into courses by a subset of participants. Beyond the workshop, ongoing networking may further support sustainable PH content integration into the curriculum.