Many roads can lead to Rome: communicating occupational and environmental medicine

Erren, T. C., Lewis, P. — 2025-07-23T02:35:20-07:00

A 2021 survey in France by Lamouroux and colleagues paints a bleak picture of what medical students, residents and graduated physicians think about occupational physicians—namely, negative stereotypes abound.1 Importantly, though, they also conclude that ‘Better communication of the functions of [occupational physicians] throughout medical school would improve their image in the medical community.’

As an institute with teaching modules in occupational medicine (OM) and environmental medicine (EM) for ~400 students in every semester, we ask again and again ‘how can we inform about OM and EM in medically sound, socially relevant, and memorable ways for students, residents, physicians and, indeed, other stakeholders in public health?’ To inform about the principles of OM and as an offering for continuing education across medical disciplines, we recently used tongue-in-cheek material in the form of studying Indiana Jones.2 3

In the past, memorable tongue-in-cheek articles have been...

Occupational and Environmental Medicine PostScript

Many roads can lead to Rome: communicating occupational and environmental medicine