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…
Doctors, nurses and administration staff from a medical centre in Caroline Springs in Victoria took over the volunteer roles at Brimbank parkrun on Saturday, to encourage more local residents to lead happier and healthier lives. To promote ‘social prescribing’, where GPs recommend parkrun to patients for physical and social benefits, GP Dr Jennifer Maxwell said it…
When 52-year-old Joanna visited her GP last year she had not been 100 days without a migraine in more than 20 years. She was also not a runner. Joanna walked out that day with a prescription for Seacliff Esplanade parkrun rather than a prescription for drugs, and 100 days later not only celebrated a…
Today is International Social Prescribing Day, which highlights the importance and significance of the health sector in using non-medical referral options to improve the health and wellbeing of patients. Options such as parkrun. Here in Australia, parkrun is keen to build on the groundbreaking #parkrunPractice initiative that was developed by parkrun UK in collaboration…
Dr Jennie Wright began referring some of her patients to parkrun after noticing the benefits herself: I went to my first parkrun after my little brother told me about it. I had started running at home on a treadmill but was too embarrassed to run outside where people could see me. I was…
Steve Connelly had a pacemaker inserted at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital in October 2018 after a series of sudden ‘blackouts’. Faced with the uncertainty of how his body would react to even the most simple of physical daily tasks, Steve’s confidence took a massive blow. Steve’s doctor, a regular at Torrens parkrun, prescribed…
As part of our health and wellbeing work, we have developed an online survey to better understand what Australian-based primary healthcare professionals are doing to refer or signpost people to parkrun – also known as ‘social prescribing’. If you are an Australian-based healthcare professional we would really appreciate if you could take a few…
