The country's best known emergency physician "Dr Tom" has set sail on a six-month circumnavigation of New Zealand to address a health issues in his own watery backyard.
Dr Tom Mullholland will be docking at 16 different ports around the coastline of Aotearoa to offer free medical assessments and advice.
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Dr Tom said he expected to encounter a litany of ailments but he hoped his greatest impact would be influencing people's behaviour towards healthy living.
"About 30 per cent will have diabetes or pre-diabetes, maybe 40 per cent have high blood pressure they don't know about and 40 per cent might have anxiety, stress or depression," Dr Tom said.
"But it's also about those other things that influence wellbeing because it's not just about blood tests or an eye test. It's up to the individual whether they want to go and do something about it. We can only present them with the numbers and say, 'here's the risk'."