A new essay by Simon N Young, PhD, a McGill professor of psychiatry, argues that, because of the threat of climate change, doctors must rethink whether they really need to travel to distant venues to attend medical conferences.
Dr Young writes,
"I have noticed that attendance at meetings in cities such as Kyoto and Florence is much higher than at meetings in ... I do not want to get into trouble so I had better let you fill in your own candidates for dull cities. This raises the possibility that research is not always the only motive for attending meetings."He acknowledges that getting his colleagues to change their behaviour will not be easy. Dr Young illustrates that point by way of an example from his department at McGill.
"In a recent committee meeting I attended, one of the committee members pointed out that the academic under discussion had an excellent publication record but had unfortunately given hardly any presentations at international meetings. When I pointed out that this was not an issue given the carbon footprint involved in attending meetings the committee members all laughed, which I thought ironic given that the area of specialization of the candidate dealt with aspects of moral responsibility. I had to get quite assertive to convince them that I was serious."The essay appears in the current issue of the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. Read the full thing here (PDF).
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