The Lift
The Lift is a podcast where we bring you conversations with healthcare workers, explore their experience navigating critical issues in the healthcare system and consider what fosters their sense of well-being at work, helps them to flourish, and learn what drives them forward.
Tune in weekly with our host Dr. Mary Elliott, a Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist and Mindfulness Teacher at Princess Margaret Cancer Center.
The Lift
Ep. 5: Forest Bathing: Health Benefits & Park Prescriptions
This week, Dr. Mary Elliott chats with Dr. Melissa Lem, a Vancouver-based family physician who also works in rural and northern communities within Canada. She is the co-founder and Director of Parks Prescriptions, known as #PaRx, an initiation in partnership with the BC Parks Foundation, and President of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). Melissa is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
In this episode, Melissa takes us back to her early career aspirations and reflects on how taking time to personally reflect on her wellbeing propelled her to become a world leader in the health benefits of nature. Her story reminds us to take a pause, and to reflect on our own sense of well-being.
More About Melissa
Dr. Melissa Lem is an internationally recognized leader in the field of nature and health. She has also engaged in advocacy and policy work on a broad range of other issues, from climate change and hydraulic fracturing to sustainable health care and low-carbon transportation.
A widely published writer, Melissa's work has appeared in media including the CBC, Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, The Narwhal and National Observer. As a regular climate change panellist on CBC Radio's Early Edition and in-house medical columnist for CBC TV Vancouver, one of her major priorities is knowledge translation.
Dr. Lem was the inaugural winner of University College’s Young Alumni of Influence Award at the University of Toronto and the 2022 Adult Nature Inspiration Award from the Canadian Museum of Nature, a 2021 World Parks Week Ambassador, sits on the Advisory Committee of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Health and Well-being Specialist Group, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia.
Listen to Dr. Melissa Lem talk further about nature prescriptions on CBC’s Back to the Land with host Duncan McCue:
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1942687811592
Learn more about PaRX Prescriptions:
https://www.parkprescriptions.ca/en/about
About Our Host
Dr. Mary Elliott is a Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, and Mindfulness Teacher at Princess Margaret Cancer Center, University Health Network.
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