February 20, 2026

by Dr. Plastic Picker

The talks were deployed! It was our first time giving a talk on environmental health at UC San Diego Rady’s Pediatric Residency. This is during their new advocacy elective. I’m grateful for this opportunity to deliver the talks and give four new opportunities to students to present their projects, and to deploy a new partnership /project with the San Diego Air Pollution Control District. Probably the most important thing that happened is that I was able to connect the Office of Environmental Justice at SDAPCD. After two joint talks, our partnership is solid now and the students have been introduced. We also met two new individuals that are important for us to grow our organization. Anna Northrup a new Ms4 from UC San Diego School of Medicine, interested in pediatrics, and also going to head a project with NRDC on Nitrogen fertilizer legislation. And then a talented young freshmen Jaime from UCSD who is also from the an environmental justice neighborhood in San Diego. It’s critically important to mentor students who reside in the neighborhoods that we are trying to protect. I learned this concept called academic extractivism from my good friend Dr. Elizabeth Friedman. Academic extractivism is bad. Mentoring students from EJ neighborhoods is good.

All in all, it was worthwhile. The talks did not go perfect. The first talk went fantastic and it had that amazing energy and connections. The second talk, we were able to really meet our new partners and discuss projects, but it was 3-4 very tired residents in the afternoon who were set on leaving on time. I think this is why it’s hard to loop in residents into this work, as they are overtired. You have to find the right one! But we met a lot of new friends during the two talks and it was something I needed to do.

I was actually very impressed with the growth of the student presentations. The students get better and better, as they practice. One of our students Wooch Kim is working on a new line of thought on pediatric oncology and climate resilience. The growth from the first to second talk was remarkable. The powerpoint slides were improved and eye catchy, and definitely had an artistic unity to it. Eleanor Jung one of my more experienced students is always flawless in her presentations. And the third student that presented, Justin Buchanan, it was fun to get to interact with him and watch him learn a new skillset. Sometimes when you have been doing one thing so long and you are good at it, you don’t grow as much. And it’s fun to see more experienced students realize that new skillsets are interesting and challenging and fun.

No matter what, the two talks were memorable. I’ll always remember the rain yesterday, going from light showers to drizzle. I’ll remember wanting to tell the students nonsense gossip but not able to, because I had to go pick up our daughter from school earlier than planned. In the end, we were all able to fit this in. We prepared and delivered, and it got done.

Climate work like this is very forgiving, because is our team had not shown up – it would not have happened. The 2nd audience and talk was a bit frustrating, because so much preparation went into the talks and planning and coordination to get all the people there. And sometimes it felt like we were speaking to ourselves. But it’s hard to be a resident in the middle of training. They have a lot of ICU rotations and overtired.

Just wanted to share some of my emotional journey and share some of the process and feelings of disappointment and exhaustion – as this was a new challenge I took upon myself. But it was done! and I’m done with climate work for today! Going to work the late shift tonight and just have 1 meeting at 10am with Scripps Oceanographic Institute So Cal Heat Hub to coordinate their talk at H3SD.

Thank you for following along this eco-activism and climate and health journey of mine.