A Nature Prescription Can Be Preventive Medicine with Dr. Melissa Lem

This episode is hosted by Dr. Anna Gunz, with guest Dr. Melissa Lem

Climate change is not a distant forecast, it’s already shaping symptoms, stress, and risk in the people we care for. In this episode, Dr. Anna Gunz talks with family physician and researcher Dr. Melissa Lem about what it means to practice medicine where planetary health is part of primary care and why prevention has to include the environment patients live in.

Dr. Lem shares her journey from a love of the outdoors to rural medicine and how a “nature deficit” in urban practice pushed her to dig into the research on green space and health. We explore the development of the nature prescription program (PaRx) and how this can improve stress, mood, and overall well-being. 

If you’ve been looking for a hopeful, actionable take on climate change and health, this conversation delivers. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and check out the PaRx program at the link below.

https://www.parkprescriptions.ca/

Recording Date: 2023-07-31

Episode Production & Management Team:
Jakob Wilk, Emma Cornell, Abby Walker, Olivia D'Andrea Brooks, Emily Douglas, Danielle Pineda, Amaan Thawer, and Mariah Peters

Show Artwork: Laney Beaulieu

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Speaker 0:02

Welcome to Hot Air, Cool People with Dr. Anna Gunz. A podcast devoted to cool professionals with cool ideas for a planet full of hot air. In this episode, Dr. Gunz speaks with Dr. Melissa Lem, a family physician and researcher focused on the connections between climate change, health, and planetary well-being. Dr. Lem discusses how climate change is already affecting patient health and why addressing environmental issues is an essential part of caring for individuals and communities. This conversation explores the role of physicians as advocates, the importance of prevention, and how reconnecting healthcare with the natural world can support healthier futures for both people and the planet.

Meet Dr. Melissa Lem

Anna Gunz 0:40

Hi, thank you so much for joining us today.

Melissa Lem 0:43

Anna, I'm so glad you invited me to be on this podcast. I can't wait to chat with you.

Anna Gunz 0:50

Well, I feel the same. And I know that we've chatted before, but I was wondering if you could tell me again, tell tell us about yourself. And just start with your journey to medicine. Was this always part of the plan? Like how did you get here?

Melissa Lem 1:04

Well, I am currently practicing family physician, living and working on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Musqueams, Quamish, and Slowotith Nations, otherwise known as Vancouver, currently on the West Coast here. But to be honest, medicine was not always my dream. So when I was a kid, I had all kinds of dreams about things I wanted to be. And a lot of them involved adventure. So at one point in my life, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be an archaeologist. When I was hitting kind of later high school, actually, I wanted to be an environmental biologist. But growing up in a traditional family where my parents had moved from mainland China, immigrated to Canada, they wanted all their kids to be doctors. So I listened to what they said. I eventually applied to get into medical school, did a human biology degree, and got into medical school, was lucky enough to do that. And before I went to medical school, my present to myself and my parents' present to me was in fact sending me on an environmental expedition in Kentucky, where I tracked mountain elk and how they moved between kind of newly, newly created edge environment between sort of like open grass. They were essentially blowing the tops off mountains to mine coal. Anyway, but they were now creating these transition zones between kind of grasslands and forest. And apparently elk loved that. Anyway, so so my journey to medicine was sort of through my interest in adventure and the environment, and then eventually ending up studying human health, but always having this thread of loving the planet, loving to be outside, finding solace in green space when I was younger, growing up in the suburbs of Toronto and experiencing racism and finding myself feeling more at home in nature. But but just always loving being outdoors and kind of wanting to save the planet. And then eventually falling in love with human health too. Like I'm so glad that I'm a physician now. My parents were right that it was a good choice for me in terms of a career. But it's just great to be able to marry both my interests in the planet, the environment in nature and human health at the same time in what I'm doing right now.

Anna Gunz 3:19

Your story resonates so much with me. But I'm laughing though that your parents told you to do it because when I told my parents I was going to go into medicine, they were like, Yeah, we know. And I was like, What do you mean? Why didn't you tell me? And they're like, Well, if we told you, you never would have done it. So I was like laughing at the opposite arrival. But yeah, no, it's a I love that story and I love this diversity because I think it's so grounded in really what planetary health is, which is, you know, health is so multifaceted and associated with so many other species. And how did you feel going into medicine, having this background and passion? Did you feel that you had a hung for this space? People were receptive to it.

Melissa Lem 4:02

Initially, I would say no, because not that people weren't receptive to it, but there really wasn't a lot of talk about climate change or the environment or nature at all in medical school when I was going through my training. So it was something I think through the necessity of having to get through that intense course load and get through your rotations and your clerkship, that I had to put aside for a while. But I would still find time when I could. I mean, I lived in a lot of cities, I have to say, during my training in my undergrad at University of Toronto and then eventually Ottawa. But the first thing I did when I could choose my first clerkship rotation, and I think this was somewhat subconscious, probably, is I chose to do rural medicine. Like you could choose to do your family medicine rotation in the city, or you could choose to go rurally. And I thought my first rotation, I want to go somewhere where I'm surrounded by nature. So I ended up in in Sioux, Ontario, and had an amazing experience that's that contributed to my career. Today, I sort of straddled the border between working in an urban practice and then doing rural locums. But that was my way to express it, I think, is finding ways to spend as much time as I could outside of the city during my training. But it was really, it was really moving into practice. And my first job was as a full service rural family doctor in northern BC in a town called Hazelson and loving it, even though it was objectively a pretty stressful job, becoming like I was in my mid-20s running an emergency department and delivering babies in the middle of the night with no backup, except for wonderful colleagues, other family doctors. But it was moving from that practice back to Toronto. I somehow landed up close to downtown Toronto when we moved back for family reasons.

Nature Deficit In Medical Training

Melissa Lem 5:50

And finding myself having this nature deficit experience that again, I didn't have words for it at the time. But that was what led me to discover this incredible body of knowledge about the health benefits of nature because of how deprived I felt from the nature I was experiencing that I tried to experience during my training and also in my first job. So when I discovered that body of knowledge, I thought, wow, this is something that I've been missing in my medical training in my knowledge base. This is something that I want the rest of my colleagues to know, that I want the public to know about how powerful spending time in nature and being around nature can be for your health.

Anna Gunz 6:28

That's fascinating. And you, I mean, I know you've you've written a lot and you've spoken a lot and you have this relationship now with Parks Rx. Can you tell me a little bit about, I mean, how that started, but also how it was received? Because I mean, you've been doing this for a long time now, and you've really created this narrative in in Canada at least. Like you're, I think, largely responsible for this. How did this

From Writing To National Momentum

Anna Gunz 6:54

all come about? And how have you seen people's reactions to this change?

Melissa Lem 7:01

And I don't know that I can say that I'm largely responsible for this. Those are big words, that's a big claim. Um that's me, that's me giving this to you. Thank you. But I would say, I mean, it's been it's been probably 12 or 13 years now since I started working and speaking and writing in this space. And there was a big deficit. Like I said, there weren't many people speaking about it. I remember doing a bit of internet searching, looking around and seeing that there were some colleagues in the US doing this kind of work. And the odd article here and there in Canada about doctors prescribing, possibly prescribing nature, but on a very local, small regional basis. And I thought there's no way we're going to create the change that we need without without engaging a larger portion of the medical profession and colleagues. So I started with what I knew. So when I started writing about the health benefits of nature, this was around the same time that I began to appear as a medical expert on CBC, CBC TV's former lifestyle show, Steven and Chris. And something else that one of my other careers that I was interested in when I was growing up was journalism. And so I had been writing for, you know, I wrote for my university student paper when I was none in undergrad. And then I was writing articles for the CBC actually that would accompany my online or sorry, my TV segments. And so I thought, well, I I know how to write. So what I did initially was I reached out to Evergreen, which is a charity based in Toronto at the Evergreen Brickworks that focuses on greening cities and connecting people to them. So I pitched this blog, this blog to them, like blog series about the health benefits of nature. And I thought, okay, that sounds interesting. Like, sure, why don't you write one article for us and let's see where it goes? Anyway so I wrote, I wrote one article for them. I forget what the first topic was, but they really liked it. And so I started writing blog entries for them. And then because it was so novel, like there weren't many people speaking about this, people started to pay attention, including the David Suzuki Foundation. And they invited me to write a blog or two about stress and how connecting to nature, spending time in nature reduces it. And people started noticing and in inviting me to speak at conferences. But things really took off when I moved to BC at when my son, he's now eight and a half years old, when he was just about a year old. And and I connected with the BC Park Subnation, who were just starting operations in 2018, and they were interested in launching a national nature prescription initiative. And this is something that I had been thinking about for years. But I thought, well, I mean, I'm one family doctor. I don't really have networks I'm connected to. How am I going to launch this large-scale program? I want to make this big. But they, I mean, they wanted to do the same thing. So I joined forces with them in 2019, became director of PARX, their park prescription program. And then we launched in our first province in BC in at the end of 2020, and then spread to every province across Canada over the course of about a year and a half, ending up with Newfoundland and Labrador in June of 2022, which was very poetic from coast to coast. So yeah, it was really having, you know, having done some of the work in this space already, leaning on the skills I knew, you know, the different skills I had in sort of like broadcast television and and writing. And then really, in fact, being able to connect to something I left out of the story, I guess. So I'm president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment right now, but being able to connect with colleagues across the country in every province who got it, like who, based on their interest in planetary health, understood this connection between nature and health. And then, and then they were really the people who took it forward and allowed us to launch in every province. And so I think that's a really important part of this work is not only trying to get the message out there, but but encouraging colleagues to become advocates for the same thing. So it's not just one person. Like, I don't, there's no way I want to be the only person, you know, responsible for this in Canada. We need people like you, Ana. We need people like the medical students, Emma, I remember, and Jackie on in in Atlanta, Canada, who helped launch it in the Atlantic provinces. We need people like that advocating and working on this because it's it's a project that it's a large undertaking and a really important undertaking that I think a lot of people need to be involved in for it to succeed.

Anna Gunz 11:38

Now, I want to ask you to explain what exactly it is. And but before I do that, I think you touched on something that I think is really key, which is almost like loneliness, but finding your people and how in every cause it feels so good to connect with people who feel the same. And I think more and more that exists, and maybe it exists, I think, in bubbles in certain areas. But I found it really interesting to be in this space, especially in the last few years, because I just feel like it's multiplying as more and more people are aware that this is an issue, which surprised me. I didn't realize how you know, realistically, in the education system and in medicine, you really could come through without any environmental grounding unless you sought it out or you had a background in it. So that piece about how finding community, and I think the other piece is like what a positive space this is to be yet. Because this is it's just full of people who just want to make this a better place and care and have all sorts of different skills and everything relates to other things and can help sort of pull initiatives forward and share ideas.

Melissa Lem 12:54

Right. And that's one of my favorite things about this work. And I think when you ask people what their favorite thing is about this work, it's it's a common answer, is that the incredible people that you meet because they they have the same objective is to to keep the planet, to keep our communities healthy for the people that we love and our patients. So I mean, they're I can't think of a higher calling than that, right? And like you said, uh this space is growing by leaps and bounds in terms of the kinds of people who are engaging it and the kinds of skills and knowledge and passion that they bring to this work. Like I can think of so many different health professional colleagues who who have recently found their people, whether it's within within CAPE or within kind of local greening initiatives within their own hospitals or even within environmental groups in their communities. There's so many ways, if you want to contribute to this work right now, that you can. It doesn't have to be lonely anymore. I would say it was a bit lonely, probably uh 10 years ago, at least among medical colleagues talking about the health benefits of nature. I think at that time, because not many people were talking about it, people still thought it was sort of this out there woo-woo thing. But once I think just like with climate change and planetary health, once you point out all the evidence behind that, because a lot of physicians in particular are very evidence-based, then that's the way to get them on board and get them excited about it, that this intuitive feeling that they have is in fact grounded in research. So it is an exciting time. It is a great time to be working in this field. And, you know, I hope that people are inspired by by hearing about the work that you do, Anna, and hearing about the work that that CAPE and other health professional groups do, um, and even other groups beyond do that. There is a place for them. It's it's a friendly place now, I think. And it's it's the most inspiring group of people to work with, too.

How PARX Nature Prescriptions Work

Anna Gunz 14:56

Can you explain quickly what the national parks your your park prescription is, and depending on where people are, how they access it? Sure.

Melissa Lem 15:07

So PaRx is is Canada's national nature prescription initiative. And if you are a regulated health professional within Canada in any of the provinces, so it could be anything from a psychologist to a physician to an occupational therapist, you can go to our website, parkprescriptions.ca. And within Quebec, there's a French language program called Prescrib Nature, so Prescree-Nature.ca. You can register to start prescribing uh nature. So when you do that, we send you a bit of a toolkit and a customized nature prescription file that you can use to start prescribing nature to your patients, working with them to figure out what nature is in their environment, what their interests are, what their schedules like, and how they can fit it in into their everyday lives. And we have a standard recommendation that you spend at least two hours in nature each week and at least 20 minutes each time, based on some studies that have looked into dosing to try to maximize your health benefits from spending time in nature. We also were not only trying to just prescribe nature, but also make it easier for people to access it. So we we announced a collaboration with Parks Canada just about a year and a half ago now, in January 2022, where prescribers in our program can prescribe free Parks Canada Discovery Passes, annual passes, to their patients to try to help reduce one barrier to accessing nature. And so we totally realize that not everyone lives within, you know, close to a Parks Canada administered site, like a national park or marine conservation area or a national historic site. But so what we've been trying to do is in fact expand our suite of offerings within different provinces to include botanical gardens, or I can't quite say the next thing we're going to do, but there are two really exciting ones in Ontario that we're going to be announcing pretty soon. But just different ways to, again, reduce barriers to nature access. Transportation is one of them. And that's something that we've been having conversations with transportation organizations in BC about to try to reduce that barrier to nature access also.

Anna Gunz 17:20

Absolutely. Although, I mean, people also can look around themselves, right? To get nature, you know, sitting by a tree or a park as well. That's right.

Melissa Lem 17:32

Yeah. And there is research showing, Anna, that when you feel like you've had a meaningful experience in nature or a connection to nature, that that's when you'll start to notice and experience the health benefits. So it doesn't have to be a national park. When we prescribe, when we prescribe nature, it does focus on everyday local nature, not, you know, heading out, heading out to Tefino or whatever, to Pacific Brim National Park Reserve every weekend. We really want people to focus on the everyday nature that they can get, to continue to get those benefits week by week. That's wonderful.

Anna Gunz 18:12

I don't know how you want to answer it, but I mean, one of the things when we talk about evidence, I always reflect on as a friend of mine who's an Indigenous man who was talking about, you know, we were talking about he's trying to get nature into the hospital to create more culturally appropriate spaces. And, you know, we have a Nature for Healing program that we're trying to start rolling and start to do nature prescriptions and it would working in partnership to help advocate for these spaces. And I remember talking about some of the studies with him, and he looked at me and he's like, Why would anyone need to do those studies? And it made me laugh because it's, you know, it's kind of an interesting culture we have where even things that are so intuitive to us when we think about it, most people have this implicit relationship with nature, or they have these beautiful screensavers. And when they want to go on holiday, people want to go to these pristine environments. But this idea that actually getting out on a regular basis might impact your health is somehow foreign, or I think people sort of realize it, but it's an it's implicit, not explicit, which is one of the things I love about the Nature Prescriptions program and the dialogue it creates. So that's my first kind of statements, last

Pandemic Shift And The Need For Data

Anna Gunz 19:23

question. But I think rolling into that, it's do you think that some of the dialogue that happens now is affected by the pandemic? Because I think in that there's first even people who hadn't maybe struggled from a mental health perspective or hadn't been aware that they have, or feel like there was a lived experience about well-being and conversations about mental health that are affecting people who sort of typically wouldn't, and whether then this sort of acceptance of nature and these other pieces about this conversations about well-being that have only escalated and how it rolls and connects to the social justice system has affected the perception of all of this work that you've been doing, as well as obviously we saw nature return to places, and that was a very visceral reminder of our effect on the planet. Like, what what do you do you think there's something in that at the population level?

Melissa Lem 20:20

Yes, absolutely. So the pandemic both made it much harder to launch this program from a personal perspective because suddenly I I was at I was trying to work my job as a family doctor in the community, feeling terrified, you know, without PPE and no vaccinations and anything. And also homeschool my child who was in kindergarten at the time. And so we'd planned to launch park prescriptions in the spring of 2020. Obviously, that didn't happen. We all know what happened in the spring of 2020. So we instead postponed it until the fall of 2020, which is not bad. So it both made it harder for me on a personal level, but much easier, I think, from national receptivity perspective to launch because suddenly people weren't able to de-stress by spending time indoors at theaters or going to concerts or going to restaurants or even sitting outdoors at a cafe. Like everything was shut down. And in fact, I think it was this happened in BC. I think it happened across the country as well. But before we knew how COVID transmitted, parks were shut down too. Like you would see caution tape on jungle gyms and around parks. Like you guys can't be here. And so I think people were were kind of driven outside because they couldn't gather together indoors. But then they also felt acute deprivation of these green spaces too, because a lot of them closed. And so people intuitively understood as they were spending more time outside that it was good for them because they felt better when they spent time outside. They felt less stressed. And instead of kind of distracting them, themselves with indoor pursuits, they were spending more time outside and noticing the health benefits, but then also feeling deprived at a certain point in the pandemic of them. So I think that I think the populace was ready for this concept. And I think they were also really ready for a good news story. There were so many terrible news stories that were coming out, especially during that first year of 2020. And I think people were looking for something that was a good evidence-based, science-based story. But to your point about why we need research, why we need this work to be evidence-based, it comes down to different audiences. So I thought the same thing, which is why I was shocked when I did that lit review over 10 years ago and thought, whoa, people have thought of this question. Like they actually are doing studies on spending time outside and whether it's good for you. We know it's good for us. Like, why do you need research? But the reason why you need research is because the structures that we we live and work in. If you want hospital to bring something on board, there has, there have to be trials. If you want a medical association to support something, there has to be research behind it. If you want the government to invest in something, they want data, data, data. So I think it's it's important for for our medical profession and our institutions and our governments, which in some ways you could say is, you know, is are behind the curve in terms of traditional knowledge because we focus so much on what we can, the data we can gather and and what we see in front of us, as opposed to other forms of knowledge. But it's it's still important, I think, in today's world and the structures that we practice in to have that research. And and certainly that's the piece that has really convinced a lot of our colleagues is the research. They really want those RCTs. They really want, they really want those studies in order to be able to recommend it, to prescribe it to their patients in a formal way.

Anna Gunz 23:52

Yeah, it's it's I totally agree. And it's it's almost I'm I'm always a bit torn, right? In the sense that on the one hand, it's something that's beautiful because it involves so many different things and relationships and you know, so many questions about nature and how you define it. Like there's so many layers to it, and there's something so wonderful about it just getting people outside and leaving it at that. And then on the other hand, you getting really specific about different exposures and how long, and I completely understand why it happens. And at the end of the day, it's all about feeding into these good processes and and and ensuring we're connecting with nature and then wanting to preserve it. But I feel like I I feel like constantly torn in some way, and I don't really know how to articulate about recognizing the need and understanding and appreciate it, but then also wondering you know, whether the conversations about how sometimes we shouldn't need those things, whether whether in some ways we're what's the word I'm looking for?

Bridging Evidence With Traditional Knowledge

Anna Gunz 25:07

You know, I think yeah, it's you you talked about knowledge, like you know, honoring traditional knowledge and and knowledge keepers and and and cultures that have embraced this and preserved this, and then we're taking it and in our way in order to justify it and and fund it and program it like we do, uh and and we need those things, are we are we are we polluting it somehow?

Melissa Lem 25:33

And I think it's a both and situation here. So there are people that different kinds of messages and different kinds of approaches will resonate with, right? I think to to get the medical institution on board, to get the health profession on board, we need to have some kind of evidence. But to, but I think we can also build those bridges with other groups that have traditional knowledge to bring this forward to as many people as we can in the most respectful and and culturally aware way that we can. I think we can do both. And I've been having some conversations with colleagues in the North as we focus on trying to launch in the territories and also within BC here to figure out how we can bring this concept to to Indigenous peoples in a way that resonates and in a way that honors the fact that this is part of how how their knowledge structures, this is part of how their societies have have lived and understood since time immemorial. So we have a lot to learn. We have a lot to learn from Indigenous peoples and and you know, within Canada and beyond about this work. And that's an exciting, that's an exciting part of the work that we do too, I think, these conversations that we're continuing to have.

Anna Gunz 26:47

Absolutely. I think in in our in a hospital environment, as we're we're launching nature prescriptions, I was sitting in a youth circle and I think it's it became clear it's a way to help advocate for cultural needs and finding a way to it make it easier to ask for what they've or like our patients have already wanted to seek out or missed and create a dialogue that might help open some cultural conversations, even when the healthcare system, you know, and as I listen to stories of how they have had very negative experiences, and hoping that this can soften and create bridges or at least make it easier to ask for things, or maybe the team is now offering nature in a way that they wouldn't, which hopefully might soften the experience or change change the way that we have these conversations. It's a it's a very interesting conversation to listen to and be part of a very important work.

Melissa Lem 27:54

Right. Anna, I want I want to mention something that's coming up. And that thought is that you and I in particular have immense privilege in this space, like as physicians, as people who have gone through traditional education systems, we we hold a certain amount of respect from government, from these institutions. And I think a lot of the work that CAPE tries to do is to stand beside people who have not been given this opportunity as much, who's who have strong voices, but who have not been listened to. And so I think it's important for us to use that privilege that we have, listen, listen to the knowledge that these people, that people are trying to bring, and then amplify those voices that have been saying the right thing for so long. And I think, you know, it it both kind of sometimes makes me even embarrassed that I have this privilege, but also it's it's, you know, it's it's it's a great opportunity too to be able to help to get the work done that needs to be done.

Anna Gunz 28:56

Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned Kate, because I wanted to sort of round this out with an opportunity for given that we talked about participation and getting involved, there's the the obviously nature prescribing. Can you talk us a little bit about what Kate priorities are now and if people are interested, how they might engage?

CAPE Priorities And How To Join

Melissa Lem 29:15

Well, we went through a strategic planning process in 2022 and came up with a number of different priority areas. One of them for the first time, in fact, is nature and biodiversity, which I find really interesting because if you think about environmental groups, it's hugging trees, saving trees, you know, saving the forest. And it's interesting that CAPE only recently has started to focus on that priority, but it's very welcome. So that's one of the priorities. Another priority is toxics, climate change is obviously another really important priority, and equity and justice are those, I would say, are kind of our major priorities right now. But if you want to get involved in the work of CAPE, this is year two. So, you know, we're in July of 2023 now, but year two of our advocacy and mobilization program, where we're encouraging health professionals to join us and essentially engage in training and connect to other health advocates, health and planetary health advocates, to work on different projects that you're interested in and also to help with the work that CAPE is doing. And so essentially it'll give you many of the skills that you need to become an effective advocate. So there already have been great dividends from the first round of this AMP program that we ran from uh parliamentary petitions being sponsored by MPs to podcast series being launched to just much greater work and connections in local communities to working on planetary health issues. So yeah, I would I would say that's a a great way to get involved with CAPE right now if you if you're just interested in this area and want to want to gain some skills. We also have regional committees in every single province that you can join if you want to start getting to work on on more local issues, provincial or municipal issues. And again, this speaks to connecting with people, to not feeling alone, to finding finding your people, finding a group that you can work with to advance things that are important to you. So there are lots of ways that you can get involved with CAPE right now. Those and those would be the two main ones I would say. Thank you so much.

What Gives Hope And Closing

Melissa Lem 31:20 Anna Gunz 31:23

I end with the last the same question for everyone, which is what gives you hope?

Melissa Lem 31:28

What gives me hope right now is seeing seeing how quickly this nature and health movement is taking off within Canada and internationally. From the work that you're doing, Anna, with the Nature and Healing Program in London to health professionals who are inspired by the PRER prescription program on the East Coast in Nova Scotia, starting to bring this work on nature and health into local high schools to teach students to try to shape those minds as they grow up and become decision makers, to having right now over 11,000 regulated health professionals within Canada registered in our program and over 5% of all physicians. Like to think that the movement would have grown this quickly in this short period of time is it's it's remarkable and it's amazing. It's amazing to be doing this work with leaders like you, to be doing this work with leaders across Canada who are so excited about how this can transform the conversations we have about the importance of nature and biodiversity for our health, and then in turn crack that open into into bolder advocacy on planetary health. That's what gives me hope. It's just seeing, just seeing that slow buildup over the past few decades and then suddenly it taking off exponentially in the last few years. It's great to see, and it's such a privilege to be part of it.

Anna Gunz 32:53

Thank you so much for your time today and sharing everything that you did. I thoroughly enjoyed it and sending much gratitude to your way for the work that you do and for spending time with us today.

Melissa Lem 33:04

Thank you, Anna. Right back at you.

Speaker 33:09

Thanks for listening to Hot Air, Cool People with Dr. Anna Gunn. In this episode, Dr. Melissa Lemm reflected on the growing connections between climate change, human health, and the natural environment. She discussed how environmental degradation and climate impact are already affecting patient health, and why prevention and planetary stewardship are essential parts of modern medical practice. Her perspective reminds us that caring for people and caring for the planet are deeply intertwined, and that health professionals can play an important role in supporting healthier futures. Special thanks to our guests and the Climate Change, Environment, and Health Production Team. This episode was produced by Jacob Wilk and Mariah Peters and managed by Danielle Pineda and Olivia D'Andrea Brooks. Show artwork was created by Lainey Bollio. Details and links are in the episode notes. Until next time.