How Green Is Your Doctor?

June 27, 2008— -- As environmentalists debate the effects of emissions standards and oil consumption on our carbon footprint, the newest edition of the British Medical Journal tackles another source — medical meetings.

In 2006, 15,000 doctors, roughly 3,500 of them from Europe, attended the American Thoracic Society meeting in San Diego, adding more than 10,000 tons to their collective carbon footprints through air travel, according to a recent study.

And that meeting is considered to be one of the smaller ones — a fact that has some doctors asking: Given the pollution from traveling to them, are international medical meetings worth it?

"Low energy light bulbs, improving the insulation of our homes and driving less will contribute. But if we stop going to international conferences we can make a significant difference and be seen to be giving a lead," wrote Dr. Malcolm Green, a professor emeritus in respiratory medicine at the Imperial College in London, in an British Medical Journal editorial. "By finding new ways of communicating with our colleagues in other countries, we can save time, energy and carbon emissions."

Also, Green feels it could start a trend.

"Doctors are big users of conferences, so this would have an effect on its own. And they should show leadership," he told ABC News.

Green, who noted that he has attended conferences for more than 30 years, said that technology enables people to achieve the goals of a conference without moving people so many pollutant-filled miles.

"Organizations such as oil companies, financial institutions and inter-governmental bodies have regular and highly successful conference calls and videoconferences," he wrote. "Some are so vivid that in the heat of discussion members forget they are separated by oceans. At a recent transatlantic conference a participant in New York asked his colleagues if they would like coffee and several hands were raised in London."

But other doctors disagree, saying that the face-to-face contact of conferences is necessary, and videoconferencing is not a convincing substitute.

"At my first videoconference the distant audience wisely stayed out of camera range," wrote Dr. James Owen Drife, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Leeds General Infirmary in the U.K., in an opposing British Medical Journal editorial. "My last one was punctuated by unexplained, far-off laughter. For relating to people, videoconferences are less effective than mobile phones."