Doctors walk the walk while talking the talk on getting active

Dr. Poteryko (Pictured) said bringing the community together for an event like this is an essential part of wellness. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie /CHLY 101.7fm.

While Nanaimo is in the midst of a family doctor shortage, an event happening this weekend will allow residents to meet with doctors to discuss the benefits of daily activity. 

Starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 11 at Maffeo Sutton Park, Walk with Your Doc will promote healthy and active living by local family doctors while also going for a walk around the park.

Dr. Derek Poteryko, a family doctor of 30 years in Nanaimo, is one of the doctors taking part in the event. He has been participating in the Walk with Your Doc events for almost 20 years. He said bringing the community together for an event like this is an essential part of wellness.

“And it's a place to come together as a community and ask questions to healthcare providers,” he said. “It's just not family doctors, there might be specialists there, there might be physiotherapists, nurse practitioners and other health care professionals to help answer questions that you might have about health and wellness.”

Poteryko said physical health and being active promote an overall healthy life and help in areas that are not just physical.
“So sitting is the new smoking. And so yes, we know that exercise is great medicine from a social perspective,” he said. “But obviously, from a physical health perspective, we know that exercise in itself reduces physical or heart disease, strokes, and cancer.”

Poteryko takes part in other community health programs in Nanaimo. On the second Wednesday of each month, he attends the Orange Bench at Bowen Park to speak with people about their mental health. 

The Orange Bench is inspired by the Friendship Bench that started in Zimbabwe and provides an action-based program that encourages conversations about mental health.

“We're not going to do medical diagnoses and workups and things there,” He said. “But I'm there to help facilitate your journey through the healthcare system because it is complicated, and to try and find out the best route that a person might take to help themselves.”

He said Saturday’s hour-long event will also have information for those without a family doctor to register for one. Currently residents in British Columbia without a doctor can register on the Health Connect Registry through HealthLink BC to find a family doctor or nurse practitioner.

Poteryko said he enjoys being able to support those without family doctors by doing events like this.

“As a caregiver, it is always hard to see those who don't get care or have good access to care,” he said. “So in some ways, I think this is my therapy in a sense that I'm able to be there and community for community I can't be there every day.”

He said he sees hope in the number of people without family doctors shrinking over time.

“I'm still very hopeful in the years to come,” he said. “Nanaimo is a great place to live. In our residency program over the last 13 years has actually graduated over 60 doctors who live in this community. So we're actually not terribly ‘doctor shortaged’ yet.”

Poteryko said Walk with Your Doc is a day to remind people to be mindful about being active while life may get busy. He said it is recommended that a person should have about two and a half hours of physical activity a week. He said people can start slow and then move into adding more. This can mean by walking to the mailbox, walking around the block, or taking a dog for a walk.

“Go slow. If you're somebody who has not been doing daily activity, you might want to try five or seven minutes for the first week or two,” he said. “Be kind to yourself, because your body hasn't been moving as much, you might just want to ease into something.”

Poteryko said this event is all about community and activity and bringing the two together.

“The message is that we are a community and we're not alone in Nanaimo, and the fact that there is help out there for a person, no matter what their ailment is, and that exercise is medicine,” he said. “It's one of the medicines that's good for kind of almost anything and everything.”

Other Walk with Your Doc events will be taking place over the weekend in other communities across Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland. Information on the different events can be found on the Walk with Your Doc website.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.