Month: March 2026

March 21, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I usually chatter on about my own children or just life, but this blog has always been about environmental health and climate and health. What I’ve learned in activism, is everyone activates differently because everyone is different. For me, I like to focus on individual students and specific projects. And in this weird world of mine, I was lucky to meet a young first year medical student at the beginning of her training at UC San Diego School of Medicine. I was able to pair her with an environmental health project that she was passionate about, and connected her with a team that got that legislative project done. She was so incredibly easy to work with and the project was so very impactful for the state of California. And now she matched at UCSF Oakland which was her top choice.

I have a letter of recommendation that details her journey, and we have so many emails going back and forth over the last 3 years. And I’ve come to trust her, and believe in her future. She is so very capable.

But I just wanted to remember this day. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with her, because initially when I started this work I worked with very young premedical students. With an actual medical student especially from UCSD, I can be much more effective. Actually we all can be more effective with our time. She dropped off a private and very heart-warming note to our house.

The words I wanted to remember on this emotional internet rambling is this. “Your fierce support for medical and premedical students is an inspiration.” “I am so grateful to have met you early in medical school because you have opened up the world of advocacy and shaped the type of career in primary care that i hope to have.”

I am thankful to my good friend and advocacy partner Dr. Luis Castellanos for invited to speak with his medical class many years ago. Maya helped make the entire state of California healthier for our children by reducing leaded aviation fuel, and banning it effective 2030 in the entire state. We are the first in the country, and she is the first medical student that I have mentored through most of her medical school career and supported through the residency match process. Our own daughter is doing very well in the college admissions process as well, and she will find out in 1 week where she goes for college. But today, I wanted to remember Maya’s journey. She’s going home to the bay area too, and this all feels so very right.

March 14, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I don’t think people really get me? I have had multiple people ask me if I’m leaving my clinical day job which actually pays me money to go do climate activism full time? I don’t think those people really understand. I don’t mind because I’m the only one who really needs to understand myself. This is a hobby! I’m not giving up my day job. Not one person can solve the climate crisis, and it’s more efficient for me to motivate and inspire others to join in on this monumental tasks than do it myself.

Plus I’m not financially stupid. There is no money is activism that is sustainable. Everyone wants to change the world. Politicians, cult leaders, nonprofit leaders, stay at home parents – but the problem is that you have to feed yourself and your family. I don’t really want to change the world, I honestly don’t think I have that power or that is my destiny – does that make sense. I just know my role in the world right now is to do what I can, have fun, meet some people, and still be a pediatrician.

It’s really powerful to have a hobby that helps the world, and you can do it freely and voluntarily. Plus it saves you money if you are donating your time to help others and not spending money on frivolous things that cost money.

I have more time to do climate work because I’m not really into shopping. I don’t really have a lot of friends I care to socialize with (we have a very close family so I need to just spend time with my actual family). I’m not really into personal beauty other than looking good on camera. I don’t really like collecting things. And I have a lot of imagination because when we were young we didn’t have a lot of material wealth, so you had to kind of use your imagination

Right now I’m studying Vietnamese by myself, and improving my medical vietnamese and bothering my mom every day about different nuances of Vietnamese vocabulary. She gets annoyed sometimes, but she’s my mom and that’s her job to teach me Vietnamese. And it’s a free hobby that makes me super happy! It actually might make me money because if I can pass the Vietnamese language test (which I missed by 1 point 16 years ago), I think I get like $300!!! If I pass the test, I’ll take my mom for lunch of something with that money.

I’ve really enjoyed this hobby of mine for 6-7 years now. Has it been that long? I forget honestly. It’s still fun because it’s volunteer. I’m glad I didn’t make it my job because I actually love being a pediatrician. I have to do my MOC questions this quarter!!!! I want to get my score up! My brain still works! It’s great! I’m getting older now and I want to try to prevent dementia!

March 13, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I’ve been reading medical /pediatric Vietnamese. It’s a publication from the State of California for the Vietnamese-American population. It’s been good for me. Practicing reading, and writing again and listening to myself. Language is complicated. And I’m at a place I realize how complicated Vietnamese is when we are 50 years removed from the Fall of Saigon, when an entire people were spread across the world. And then now with social media and reconnecting, language becomes even more complicated. Word orders. How does one use loan words from other languages, or change them? What social class one is from and how formal one’s language is. What regional accents does one has. And language itself diverges and merges when populations split and reform. I don’t really question any of this anymore. I just now what feels right and reading and thinking and writing down vocabulary feels right, and it’s good for my brain.

We are at the first quarter of college admission season for our youngest, and I wanted to remember two phrases she mentioned to me. She formed at the end of our senior year with AP test looming and still maintaining top grades, a Shakespeare book club to review Hamlet with a few select classmates with her beloved English teacher. She is loving Hamlet and they are reading King Lear right now. Her father was a Shakespeare concentrator in college, so this seems right. One of her childhood friends and classmates called her a “Shakespeare mog” which is a compliment. Her reading is eloquent in class. And she was recounting to me some of her friends’ musings about life and adulthood, and I thought it was incredibly sweet and innocent their conversations among friends. And she told me, “Mommy. My friend group – we are ponderers.” I wanted to remember that.

March 9, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s Monday morning and it’s one of those days that I originally took off because our youngest also had it off. She goes to a fancy prep school and this is “ski week” although we never go skiing. But she’s been bed-bound for various reasons and healing, and on the upswing. I knew last week I didn’t need the entire day off, and I put myself back in clinic this afternoon to save a precious vacation day for the summer when I can spend more time with both of our children (one who is actually an adult already at 20).

It’s really important for me to work, because working and living under the normal constraints of other people keeps me grounded. Because of the way I was brought up and because of the profession I chose (pediatrician), I know that none of us are that exceptional and that all of us are extraordinary. Does that make sense? We all have our role to play in this world and in this particular time-line.

We hear back from all her schools in about three weeks. She is one of those faces in a see of faces, and each is so beautiful to me and to their community and family. But my eye is always drawn to my child’s face, as your eyes are drawn to your child’s or those that might remind you of someone important.

I am so grateful to be a mother. I got to be to the Girl Scout Troop leader. She was chosen as an Emerging Leader again and it’s her final year. Our actual troop is quiet these days, because all the girls are busy. They have all done fantastic, and I’m proud of them individually as a pediatrician and as their troop leader. But as a mother, I’m proud of my own as well. She gets to EMCEE the Cool Women’s gathering in April, and I bought tickets for her Korean grandparents to attend and myself. She asked if we could three be there, since her grandfather had through her entire child been the one to sew on all those patches she had earned since she was a Daisy Girl Scout. I think after we hear back where she ultimately goes to school, we’ll plan to have their final Girl Scout bridging gathering which honestly we can just do during the summer before all the girls head off to college. It’s too busy right now with the waiting for college admission, getting ready for Prom, prepping for the last final round of AP exams, and thinking of summer plans. She’s my last and only daughter, and she has an amazing summer of travel planned with her friends and family. I’m selfishly involved in two of the big trips including to Denmark where we’ll meet with our human right’s friends and network – something that is now part of her life and part of our family legacy. We’ll fly to Europe every summer now, and I get to watch her form networks and real relationships with families that have known each other for generations now scattered across the world due to circumstances of war and imperialism.

But what I wanted to remember today, is that I had a quiet morning and she needed me to hug her this morning. She had a nightmare, and she is almost 18 and it felt more like when she was little – and just needed me. I was sandwiched between her father who has a broken patella, and a poodle mutt that annoys me on top of my head, and her on my other side. That bed was too small for the four of us, and I was happy and wanted to remember that moment.

February 17, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s Thursday morning and I finally slept a good night’s sleep. I’d like to blame my previous days fatigue on the Tijuana Sewage Crisis, but I actually live further north so we don’t get the exposure to the hydrogen sulfide gases like our neighbors in Imperial Beach. I was previously tired because I was binge watching C-dramas. I usually watch K-dramas but they can’t make them fast enough so I’ve been watching more C-dramas. They have been really interesting and it’s fun to hear the words that sound similar to Vietnamese, because of the importation of Chinese words into Vietnamese over the last 1000 years.

But I’m thinking about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis today, and honestly I’m always thinking about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis even when I don’t want to think about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis. I need to thank the co-signatures to the epic letter addressed to the San Diego Air Pollution Control District that began our involvement 1.5 years ago. But we are all connected and I can always send that thank you email out later.

The reason I’m thinking about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis is that the amazing SDSU research team included community physicians as co-authors on the main paper. And the paper was AMAZING and so well written. It’s literally about the largest most important environmental disaster in the country. But it was rejected on it’s first submission by an editor that I actually know. In this circuitous journey of climate and health advocacy of mine, I’ve been lucky to be co-authors with several prominent environmental health pediatricians. And it was their name on the rejection email. I was SHOCKED since the paper was so well written! I even texted one of my other co-authors regarding my shock and she said that it happens, and the paper will be submitted to another journal.

I’m also always thinking about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis because there are thousands of people smelling the hydrogen sulfide and getting sick and they are always thinking about the Tijuana Sewage Crisis. Tomorrow is Saturday and it’s a precious weekend, but I have to be at the Imperial Beach Pier area at one of the ice cream shops (I need to bring my lactaid pills) to wear my costume/white coat and ask questions to someone running for Governor of California. I’m bringing along one of the UCSD medical students and one of the premedical students. There are a lot of people running for Governor, and this person was a freshman in college meeting his college girlfriend and now wife while I was a chief resident further down the Charles River at MGH. It’s funny how small the world is when you know details about people. We are all so connected in this world. And rivers whether they be the Charles River in Boston or the Tijuana River here in San Diego Country – connect us all. Water and rivers are vital to life.

But I have to think about other things as well. It’s my vacation week but I am home in San Diego for various reasons and will do some organizing. I need to get our March newsletter out because we have tons of updates to send. Need to email the UCSD students that were accepted into our 2nd UCSD Academic Internship Program to help them get their learning agreements in. I was only going to take 4 students, but we ended up accepting 5. One of the students seemed luke-warm about accepting the offer, but honestly we had 15 applicants for very few spots and it doesn’t really help me to take on more students. I’ll answer this particular student’s question but I’d rather there be just 4 students than 5. I really only offered the internship this year for one of the students who is the main organizer of the H3SD summit so that they have some time during the next quarter to help organize.

But I wanted to finish this blog post to let you know, that the Tijuana Sewage Pollution is always on my mind. But the coolest thing is that I got to be the inspiration for this beautiful art work profiled in a multi-media piece called Homesick. I think this depiction of the crisis and my part in it, is the most memorable part of this all. I really want to meet the artists someday.