The Park Doctor Blog
A curation of the latest articles, news and thought pieces on planetary health, protected areas, and the links between conservation and medicine.
Human Health on an Ailing Planet
Could the concept of a healthy human on a destroyed planet have any merit? Is there any precedence in history for Doctors taking to arms to defend their field of health and wellness on a grand scale? An article in the New England Journal of Medicine by James Dunk and...
Medical Support for the Tour de Tuli
The Nedbank Tour de Tuli is a mountain bike race taking place over four days and through wilderness areas in countries including Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Participants cover an average of 80kms per day in tough terrain amidst wildlife and sweeping views of...
Protect half the Earth for a healthy future
How much of the Earth do we need to protect from farming, development and settlement to ensure the future of health of both ourselves and our planet? And how are we doing so far? The Global Deal for Nature calls for half of our planet to be set aside to protect...
Doctors Supporting Rangers
Next time you go to a National Park and appreciate the splendour of a wild place, remember that you can do that because that area, and all species in it, are protected by law and there are people willing to enforce that law - even at great personal cost. Rangers are...
Planetary Health isn’t a new concept
“Planetary health isn’t a “new discipline”; it is merely an extension of a concept that was understood by our ancestors, and remains the vocation of all healthcare providers. Discourse on the topic requires cultural competency, critical consciousness and a greater appreciation of marginalized voices.”
Doctors against Climate Change
Around the world, groups of doctors are realising the devastation of climate change and the links to human health. In June, over 1000 UK doctors signed a letter against the 'Cancer of Climate Change'. Their demands are aligned with those of Extinction Rebellion....
Where’s the catch? The role of people in declining fish stocks
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the authors, who modelled fishing vessel number, type and effort over the past 70 years, find a stark picture. They use Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE)...
Unsafe levels of antibiotics found in rivers across the globe
Research led by the University of York and presented at the annual general meeting of the Society of Toxicology and Chemistry (SETac) in Helsinki shows that the concentration of antibiotics found in some of the worlds rivers exceeds 'safe' levels by up to 300 times...
Calling for Family Doctors to Act
The World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA), the Planetary Health Alliance, and the Clinicians for Planetary Health Working Group have published a declaration that any Family Doctor can commit to. It asks Family Doctors to take action: We ask family...
The man who saved a forest
Protected Areas are a cornerstone of eco-conservation, allowing areas of pristine wilderness to be protected from the pressures of farming and other industrial land uses in order to conserve the fauna and flora that depend on the natural habitat for their survival....
Doctors take the lead against air pollution
Doctors in the UK have taken a stand against air pollution. Findings show that over 40 towns across the UK have toxic levels of air pollution (according to WHO standards), and doctors say this accounts for the shortening of 40 000 lives every year. This is an example...
British soldier killed during anti-poaching patrol
Matthew Talbot was 22 when he died. He was a volunteer from the British Army, devoting his time to protecting elephants in Malawi against poachers who have halved their population in recent years. He is believed to have been deployed in Liwonde National Park when the...
UN GEO Report: Human health in dire straits
“This is the most thorough, most detailed and most extensive planetary health check. The take-home message is that we should have gone to the doctor sooner. We are in a bad way. The society we would like our children and grandchildren to live in is in real jeopardy. I...
Climate Trauma: Pscychology and the Climate Crisis
A recent article in the Journal Ecospychology raises the issue of how we respond psychologically to the changes happening so rapidly around us - referred to as Climate Trauma. The Abstract reads: "The disarmingly innocuous term “climate change” expresses a...
The Bigger Picture: Civilisation Health
The Lancet Planetary Health has published a call for more articles on the concept of Civilisational Health. As they put it: "It is useful to think of civilisational health in terms of a more familiar and somewhat less grandiose term: sustainability. Analogous to human...
Healthy Parks Healthy People
The IUCN's (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) 2014 conference in Sydney was the setting for the launch of their Health Parks Healthy People stream. The concept behind the stream is that humans need green spaces for their health - both urban, and...
EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet
The EAT-Lancet commission on diet was formed of over 30 experts across medicine, diet and planetary health. Their goal was to come up with dietary recommendations that will allow us to sustain our growing human population, but reduce our impact on a planet that is...
Climate change is in my lane
A Medscape article entitled Physicians Starting to Claim Climate Change is 'In My Lane' gives several examples of individual physicians who are starting to recognise the impact of the environment, and its deterioration, on their patients' health, and who have taken...
The Planetary Health Alliance
As described on their website, The Planetary Health Alliance is a consortium of universities, NGOs, and other partners committed to advancing planetary health — an interdisciplinary field focused on characterizing the human health impacts of human-caused disruptions...
1 in 7 Wildlife Rangers Seriously Injured
Violence, murder, danger, discomfort, illness. Remote placement, minimal equipment, limited communications, limited support. Poor pay, little recognition. This sounds like the sort of job description that would send most people running. Add to it new statistics: 1 in...
Tools for young doctors who want to lead change
Medical schools equip students with the knowledge and skills to undertake the technical practice of medicine. It has been argued that there is inadequate attention paid to the shaping of the future generation to function safely and enable them, in exercising...
Physician’s Social Responsibility
In an article entitled Physician's Social Responsibility, Catherine Thomasson writes: Health professionals have the skills to be excellent advocates. They are trained to seek causes of illness and demand evidence to evaluate treatments. This leads them to understand...
Understanding Conservation’s Value Challenge
An article in the Journal for Nature Conservation entitled 'Intrinsic values in nature; Objective good or simply half of an unhelpful dichotomy?' provides a useful background for doctors seeking to understand some of the philosophical challenges facing conservation....
Eco-conservation and Healthcare Ethics: A call to action
Dr Robin T Cotton asks some difficult questions centred around the concept of primum non nocere (first, do no harm), perhaps one of the best known promises of doctors and medical practitioners everywhere. In his article in The Laryngoscope he suggest that the medical...