Climate is a primary determinant of whether a particular location has the environmental conditions suitable for the transmission of several vector-borne diseases, including dengue fever, St. Louis encephalitis, and West Nile virus.

When the health care industry came under the environmental microscope, the daily work of treating patients was discovered to be highly wasteful of natural and financial resources.

Medicine, a high-energy consumer and generator of much waste—some of it toxic—must scale back the health care enterprise in the interest of preserving a livable environment.

Each physician must also be an epidemiologist in his or her community.

Do physicians have special responsibilities to be advocates for environmental change? Does considering the environment mean a compromise in quality of care?

The physician’s duty extends beyond treating individual patients to reporting public health threats when they are identified.

Proving both general and specific causation in tort claims alleging harm from environmental toxicity is difficult.

The physician’s duty extends beyond treating individual patients to reporting public health threats when they are identified.

There is great interest in ensuring patient safety through single-use items and protecting the environment from unnecessary, sometimes toxic, waste.

When a patient challenges the use of a reusable, stainless steel speculum rather than a plastic, throw-away one, the physician should educate her on the safety and environmental benefits of reusable medical devices.