The Influence of Climate Change on the Practice of Surgery: The Scientific and Public Policy Implications

There is international recognition of the substantial threat that global warming presents to human health and of the challenges that it poses to health service delivery. The World health organization recognized the health significance of global warming in selecting the topic "protecting health from climate change" for the World Health day, April 7, 2008. It estimated that global warming and climate change-related natural disasters account for over 60,000 deaths globally per year. Along with injury and death from fire, floods, and storms, global warming affects human health through effects on food security and safety, vector-borne, rodent-borne and other infectious diseases, the emergence and re-emergence of an array of infectious diseases, thermal stress, neurological disease and psychiatric illnesses, among other aspects of ill-health. However, the surgical research community is largely silent on the topic of the surgical implications of global warming.

Table of Contents:
Sample, from Chapter 1: The Climate Change Crisis, Introduction/Climate Consensus: Climate Crisis, The Pause/Cosmological Controversies, Why Climate Change is Likely to be Much Worse than the IPCC Predictions, Evidence for Future "Hyper-Catastrophic" Climate Change, Melting Ice/Melting Glaciers/The Methane "Bomb", Conclusion; Chapter 2: Climate Change Impacts upon Surgery: Introduction/Health and Injuries in a 4degree C World: Fire, Water and Wind and much more.

About the Author :
Dr. Joseph Wayne Smith is presently a Research Scholar in the Discipline of Surgery, University of Adelaide. He is also a Research Scholar in the Faculty of Health Sciences, The Flinders University of South Australia; a Research Fellow in General Practice, the University of Adelaide and a Research Fellow in the Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Adelaide. He holds four doctorates and an MA Degree: MA Sociology, Flinders University of South Australia, Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Adelaide; D.Litt, Flinders University of South Australia; Ph.D. Law, University of Adelaide and a Ph.D. Medicine, University of Adelaide. Dr. Smith is a qualified legal practitioner. Professor Guy Maddern is the R.P. Jepson Professor of Surgery and head of the Discipline of Surgery at the University of Adelaide. He is Director of the Division of Surgery and Director of the Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Research at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and Director of Surgery at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, in Adelaide, South Australia. Professor Maddern holds a Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide.

Review :
"The innovative direction taken in this book is to consider how climate change in the 21st century will impact upon surgical practice... this book is the first in the world, as far as I am aware, to discuss the relationship between surgery and climate change. The argument is bold, but well-reasoned and evidence-based. It is an important contribution to the field." - Professor Emeritus David Shearman, Discipline of Medicine, University of Adelaide. "Joseph Smith's team has once again delivered a timely, insightful and urgent call for a swift international response to the crises posed by climate change. This new text builds on the known human health impacts of climate change by documenting its reciprocal relationship with surgical practices... Quite simply, humanity has no choice but to respond to Smith and Maddern's call..." - Professor Susan M. Koger, Professor of Psychology Willamette University.