Wendy Ring, M.D., M.P.H., is a longtime family physician, a 28-year member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and an active care provider for the extremely under-served. She has provided care for people on Navajo reservations, the homeless, the un- and under-insured and undocumented immigrants.
More recently, however, her cause has been climate change, which many physician organizations agree is a huge health problem. Ring embarked last year on a bicycle ride across the northern United States, talking with and listening to people about their health and the environment, giving presentations and recruiting other physicians to join her. In the “tradition of Paul Revere,” she calls the endeavor a “three-month national rolling house call to talk about the health dangers of climate change and the health benefits of lowering our CO2 emissions.”
You can meet this fascinating physician in person on Monday, Sept. 16, when she gives a presentation in DMU’s Student Education Center Auditorium from noon to 1 p.m.
“The health effects of climate change are already here in the United States resulting in thousands of emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths from a variety of respiratory, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases; and these are just the tip of the melting iceberg,” Ring states on the PSR website. “I am deeply concerned that our government is not responding to the alarms being sounded by the scientific community…America could be a leader in the international response to climate change, yet we contribute more to the problem than to the solution.
“In medicine there is a time period called The Golden Hour, when treatment must be given if the patient is to survive,” she adds. “In the case of our planet, the Golden Hour is about to end and adequate treatment has still not been delivered.”
Ring’s talk at DMU Monday is free and open to the public. Join us for a provocative conversation about the environment around us!
