Obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and low moods – GPs are familiar with all of these conditions.
Grampa Jack’s doctor is also an expert in trench foot.
There are drugs treatments that can help manage such ailments – and waterproof boots for Grampa to wear on his allotment.
But if you work in healthcare in Shetland, there is now an alternative. GPs there have been taking part in a pilot project in collaboration with the RSPB that allows doctors to prescribe nature as part of patients’ treatment.
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The RSPB has produced a leaflet full of ideas, locations and events doctors can use with patients to allow them to engage with nature in a structured way.
The idea came out of evidence that shows getting outdoors, taking a walk and coming into contact with the world around us can have massive health benefits.
The original scheme has gone so well the project has now been extended and chances are this, or something similar, will soon make its ways into surgeries across Scotland.
But while healthcare professionals are adept at offering guidance, how good are you at taking your own advice?
When was the last time you took a walk down a country lane, climbed a hill or stopped to watch a cloud float across the sky?
On s1jobs there are openings for medical staff across the country – some of them in areas of outstanding beauty – and it would be a pity if you took up one of these opportunities then never saw more of the great outdoors than the view from the surgery window.
Recent vacancies have included a medical secretary in South Ayrshire, with its beaches, golf courses and wonderful country parks such as Culzean Castle.
Take up a similar post in Falkirk and you would have time to walk around the Helix in your lunch hour.
As a bank nurse in Aberdeen you could spend your weekends climbing the hills above Royal Deeside and as a clinical assessor in Kirkcaldy the Fife Coastal Path would run right past your door.
Apply for roles such as these and you won’t just be giving your career a boost, you could be improving your own health and wellbeing too.
For all the latest Medical/Dental/Healthcare vacancies visit s1jobs.