Fourth Year Medical Student, Karly Hampshire, Receives UC President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership

Karly Hampshire, a fourth-year UCSF medical student, was one of two University of California students recently honored with the UC President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership. Hampshire received the award in recognition of her work co-founding and co-directing the Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC), a metric-based tool for evaluating and inspiring planetary health content in heath professional schools.

The UC President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership, now in its 13th year, recognizes undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, as well as registered campus-based student organizations, for achievements that promote and support the University of California’s mission of teaching, research, and public service through collaborative student-led activities.

Hampshire is planning to pursue a career in internal medicine and has interests in medical education and the health effects of climate change. She took a gap year during 2021-2022 dedicated to climate change and health.

Hampshire’s work on the PHRC was recognized at the Board of Regents meeting on September 22, 2022, where she joined UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood in conversation about her work.

Founded in San Francisco in 2019, the PHRC has expanded rapidly and has been used to evaluate over 80 medical schools in seven countries. The student-driven initiative compares health professional schools based on five main categories: Planetary Health Curriculum, Interdisciplinary Research, Institutional Support for Student-Led Initiatives, Community Engagement and Advocacy, and Campus Sustainability. At each participating institution, student-led, faculty-mentored teams fill out the report card, identifying opportunities for improvement and engaging relevant staff and faculty along the way.

The impact of the PHRC has been highlighted in both academic literature and media outlets, including in journals The Lancet Planetary Health and Medical Teacher, and by news organizations The Guardian, Huffington Post, and MedPage Today. 

The initiative has catalyzed changes at institutions internationally, including core curricular reforms, launch of new climate change and human health electives, integration of sustainable Quality Improvement projects into core curricula, establishment of a hospital Office of Sustainability, and hiring of a sustainability intern and climate and health faculty curriculum lead.

The selection committee stated that they were, “especially impressed with Hampshire’s work to catalyze significant progress in addressing the intersectionality between human and planetary health at 80 institutions across seven countries by co-founding and co-directing the Planetary Health Report Card.”