Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“What’s a doctor doing talking about the environment? »
Or the classic: “You should be treating people. »
Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers often receives this kind of comments after a media intervention.
At 30, the young woman is just beginning to practice medicine.
And yet, his expertise is already in demand everywhere.
Universities invite him to give lectures. The one who also has a master’s degree in the environment often appears on TV. She signs open letters in the newspapers.
“If I discover you have a serious illness, but I don’t tell you about it, you’d be angry with me, huh? asks the doctor in a recent TEDx conference, which can be summed up as follows: talking about climate change can save lives.
The DD Pétrin-Desrosiers does not hesitate to criticize political parties on social networks that take decisions that are harmful to the environment and human health.
“Yes, we bother a little sometimes,” drops the one who has been practicing for just a few months at the CLSC d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Because, yes, she also heals people, no offense to her detractors.
It’s not uttered in a drooling tone. Or even challenge. When decision-makers favor the economy to the detriment of the health of the population, the scientist refuses to be silent. In his eyes, this is part of his role as a doctor.
I am very active on the networks, and in the media, because science tells us that we need people who make this link between health and climate change. It is proven that it increases the will to act for the climate.
The DD Claudel Petrin-Desrosiers
Last April, in the same week, the Government of Quebec approved the increase in the air emission limit for nickel and the federal Minister of the Environment and former environmental activist Steven Guilbeault announced, the following day, that he was authorizing the Bay du Nord oil megaproject, she laments.
” [Cette semaine-là]I said to myself: “I need a break”, she says before bursting out laughing.
If she’s laughing, it’s because she’s not one to take a break despite bad climate news. Nor to slow down. Even in its flow. The young woman speaks very quickly. As if she was afraid of running out of time to convey her sense of urgency.
In medicine by chance
Claudel Pétrin-Desrosiers chose medicine “by chance”. A high school teacher had recommended the estate to him. In his family, there is no scientist. But she has a model of school perseverance: her mother.
This Farmer’s Daughter — 10e of 12 children – left the family land to attend a secretarial course. Then, she had a passion for studies. “My mother finished her baccalaureate when I was in secondary 4”, says the doctor in an admiring tone.
At the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal, the young woman from Gatineau had the impression of landing on another planet. “About 50%—maybe more—of the students in the class had medical parents,” she says. Talking about drugs, for them, was obvious stuff. Me, I was like, “Come on, this is supposed to be part of my basic knowledge?” »
She often wondered what she was doing there. She even almost never became a doctor after failing a cardiology course and her resit exam — by one percentage point! Technically, that excluded him from the program.
Faculty officials then recommended that he reorient himself. At the same time, he is criticized for not putting his energies in the right place.
At the time, she was very involved in an association of medical students that forged links between community health, global health and human rights. This commitment is her “breath of fresh air” to get through her demanding studies, she argues.
He is granted a sabbatical year.
I was quickly confronted with the fact that there was a medicine that was very clinical, then we forgot a little about the social and political role of doctors.
The DD Claudel Petrin-Desrosiers
She will become external vice-president of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. Her tenure will take her to the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Peru.
After her sabbatical year, she must resume her second year of medicine (even the courses passed). If it fails again, it’s over. Later in her career, when choosing her specialty, everyone sees her — including herself — in public health.
New setback: she does not get one of the few places available. She must fall back on her second choice: family medicine.
“Honestly, I’m so glad I didn’t go to public health,” she says, looking back. “I have a freedom to say what I want which depends on my own credibility. I am not subject to government authorities, ”she continues.
The interview takes place in the basement of a building at the Université de Montréal, on a fine Friday in June. She leads a symposium on sustainable health.
“The best medicine for the environment is the one we don’t prescribe,” she tells the audience, which is mostly made up of older colleagues. The statement raises one or two eyebrows. She also encourages them to participate in the Prescri-Nature movement that she set up in Quebec with colleagues. The idea being to recommend exposure to nature to their patients.
The day before, the young doctor gave a similar conference at the CHUM – which has just committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2040. Without falling into “naive optimism”, she sees in this kind of commitment a sign that the climate emergency is increasingly felt. At least in the field of health.
His “greatest living inspiration” is an Australian doctor named Nick Watts. At the origin of the Lancet Countdown — a major report published each year by the renowned medical journal on the links between human health and climate change — the young scientist became head of sustainable development for the United Kingdom’s health network ( NHS). The NHS aims to be the first healthcare network in the world to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.
There are many people in positions of power who do not understand the magnitude of the situation because they have not been properly informed and trained on the issue.
The DD Claudel Petrin-Desrosiers
The raw reality
Her patients in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve remind her every day why she chose not to be silent. The other day in her office, a 3-year-old child came to consult her for asthma. The little one lives near Notre-Dame Street, where car traffic is heavy.
“When we talk about pollution, then the increase in trucking on Notre-Dame because of Ray-Mont Logistiques, it’s a little guy like him who may end up in the emergency room with seizures. asthma. It’s super concrete, ”she says.
The DD Pétrin-Desrosiers is president of the Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment. It is in this capacity that she regularly appears in the news. She has just requested a hearing from the Bureau of Public Hearings on the Environment on the entire Ray-Mont Logistiques project. A project which, according to the Association, will create a heat island and an increase in air pollution inevitable with the increase in trucking.
act of rebellion
Is she eco-anxious? we ask him.
“It’s normal to feel worried about the future,” replies the one who prefers the broader spectrum of “eco-emotions”. There is a psychiatrist who once told me: “We should no longer ask ourselves the question: what is the problem with people who do not feel eco-anxiety?” »
People of his generation even choose not to have children to save the planet. “We protect the environment so that we can continue to live there,” she says. It’s very personal, but for me, having children is hope. It’s part of an act of rebellion. That is to say: we will continue to exist. »
The young thirty-year-old does not intend to stop there. She has just accepted new responsibilities in her alma mater. She is now responsible for planetary health for the Department of Family and Emergency Medicine at the University of Montreal. Not bad for a girl who almost never graduated.