If there’s one thing that ties together all Eric Balaban, MD does—from his work fighting climate change to his time in the Army National Guard to his current Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at the Temple Lung Center—it’s his consistent belief in “lifting [his] end of the couch.”
“When I see a problem, I think it’s up to me to help fix that problem, or I’m doing a disservice by sitting on the bench,” Dr. Balaban explains. “That’s my moral code.”
It’s what drove him to get involved in climate change advocacy as an Internal Medicine resident at the University of Colorado. “The idea of climate change first came up in the headlines of news articles,” he explains. “It was always framed in a very scary way, and I thought, ‘If I want to help people, and I want to do something important, then this sure feels like an appropriate priority for me.’ If climate change were as terrifying as it had been described, then I couldn’t let fear or apathy be the reason that I couldn’t tip the scales in whatever way I could.
“As an evidence-based physician and a lover of facts, I wanted to make sure I understood the research behind climate change,” Dr. Balaban continues. “It didn’t take long for me to see that this was a very real issue. I then tried to figure out what I could do to make a difference. A lot of people ask me what they can do to confront a problem like climate change, and I tell them there are many right answers, and that the only wrong one is doing nothing. The right answer I chose was to leverage my clinical work and scientific understanding to try to enact change at a systems level through policy.”
Dr. Balaban completed a fellowship in Climate Change and Health Policy at the University of Colorado, and published original research on climate resilience while interning with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Defense Fund and working with the US Federal Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. He also joined the American Thoracic Society’s (ATS)’s Health Policy Committee and the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED)’s Environmental Medicine Task Force to study and create policy around climate change and its impact on patients.
“With PAMED, the first step was doing a lot of education and having conversations,” Dr. Balaban says. “Climate change can be an uncomfortable topic, and people have a lot of questions. Then, we passed omnibus policy within PAMED acknowledging climate change as a real and health-relevant issue. Now, we facilitate conversations among physicians about climate change, and how we can help our patients deal with its effects. We’re also creating a Climate and Health Toolkit that will be available to members, and finding ways to use our expertise as physicians to interface with politicians and shape policy at the state and federal level.”
“This Needs to Be Where We Prioritize Our Attention”
It was a desire to expand this clinical expertise—and to work with patients significantly impacted by climate change—that motivated Dr. Balaban to pursue a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at the Temple Lung Center. “As a physician interested in climate change, studying the impact of air quality on lungs makes sense,” he says. “And it’s especially important to do this kind of work at Temple Health, because of our unique patient population. Communities that have been historically marginalized and under-resourced are seeing, and will likely continue to see, the impact of climate change before anyone else.
“As healthcare professionals, that needs to be where we prioritize our attention, in both adaptation and mitigation,” Dr. Balaban continues. “Adaptation in terms of saying to the patient, ‘You’re sick because of these environmental factors. This is what we need to do to help you get better.’ Mitigation in terms of thinking, ‘We’re part of Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is a big part of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania is a huge player when it comes to our national energy portfolio. We have an opportunity to make a real difference.’”
An Award, and a Call to Action
If you’re wondering how Dr. Balaban finds time for both his clinical work and his advocacy, it’s worth noting that he also recently celebrated the birth of his first son and completed 8.5 years of service—including a deployment in Kuwait—as a battalion field surgeon in the Army National Guard. His motivation for the latter was a healthy dose of patriotism, plus the same rationale that was behind his other decisions.
“I love this country, and I want to help,” he explains. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about D-Day, and how normal people who had been minding their own business stepped up to face remarkable odds. With all of that in mind, it would have felt too cheap of me not to try to do my part.”
With this commitment to, and long and diverse record of, service, it’s no surprise that Dr. Balaban was recently named to PAMED’s Top Physicians Under 40 list. “It’s a competitive list, and being selected is a tremendous honor,” Dr. Balaban says. “It’s humbling, and I feel very grateful. At the same time, I see it as a sign that, while I may be on the right path, I also need to keep going. It’s a call to action.”
That means continuing to advocate for policy addressing climate change on the state and federal levels, and working with professional organizations like PAMED and ATS to provide expertise and guidance to lawmakers and patients. He also envisions himself maintaining a practice, so he can treat patients—including those with climate change-related issues—one-on-one.
At the same time that he outlines all of these goals, Dr. Balaban is adamant about acknowledging those who’ve made them possible. “When I made the Top Physicians Under 40 list, I kept thinking that I didn’t want to be recognized as someone who was successful out of context,” he says. “The opportunities I have, the way I think, the way I act, the things I’m able to do, and what I’m inspired and motivated to do today, are drawn from the incredible things people are doing around me. My co-fellows, my mentors, my patients, my friends and family: these are people who are doing things that deserve endless credit. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just trying to keep pace with the amazing work that those around me are doing.”
In other words, he’s not lifting the couch alone.
