Scrubbing in to volunteer at parkrun

Volunteer takeovers at parkrun are not an unusual occurrence. Often its running groups or families that participate in parkrun and decide to take on all the volunteer roles.

On August 10th, Bundaberg parkrun was taken over by students from the University of Queensland Rural Clinical School led by Academic Lead (General Practice) Therese Ryan – a regular participant and advocate of parkrun.

Over half of the volunteers who “took over” have all regularly participated in parkrun and saw this as an opportunity share the message of “movement as medicine”, but more importantly connecting with the community that they are part of and that has embraced them so much.

The students studying at the Rural Clinical School live, work and play in Bundaberg as they complete the second half of a 4-year post-graduate medical degree. As part of it, they attend lectures at their campus based in the Wide Bay Health and Hospital Service grounds, but more importantly get the opportunity to regularly “scrub in” to assist surgeons, practice vital skills like suturing and visit childcare centres, kindergartens and prep classes (along with Big Ted who gave away many high fives on the day) to talk to children in non-threatening ways about how going to hospital doesn’t need to be scary.

All of the future doctors and their educators enjoyed their morning doing a “takeover” and Bundaberg looks forward to seeing them all again soon both on the track and volunteering.