My latest piece. “Ocean Plastic Dinosaur Fossil on a CD Case, Mixed media beach plastic and electronic waste, drplasticpicker August 2020.”
August 2, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I really love making trash art. I’m coming up to a year anniversary of Dr. Plastic Picker and there are many new identities I’ve tried on. I’m definitely a blogger now with over 270 blogpost. I’m an environmental activist. I’m a litter-picker and ocean beach cleaner. I’m an occassional plogger (picking up trash and jogging). I’m an Instagrammer with almost now 1100 followers. I didn’t even know what Instagram was before all this. I’m still a Pediatrician, HMO Middle Manager and mother. But the role that has been most delightful is that I’m a trash artist. I really like making trash art.
One of my Instagram friends. She really is my friend. After COVID-19 is over, I’m going to the Palos Verde farmers market and going to visit her shop’s booth. Maybe we’ll pick up plastic together.
August 1, 2020
by drplasticpicker
About a year ago today I gave a speech in front of a local ethnic civic organization. My dad is a big funder of the organization, and asked me to give it. We had just had a measles case in our clinic, and RN Plastic Picker and I helped lead the effort to stop it. It was a complicated logistical dance with public health, our own infection control, patients and the media – but essentially I know that we helped stop a possible epidemic. I will always remember that as one of my greatest professional accomplishments. When I gave this speech in front of this civic organization, I related authoritarian governments with the measles virus. I spoke of needing to innoculate the population with knowledge of past evils, just like we innoculate children with measles vaccine. I had sent it over to my sister for comment, and as a gifted attorney and speaker herself she really liked it. I gave the speech and had dressed in a suit. My parents and my brothers were there. It is rare for all of us to gather just our original nuclear family (my sister could not make it since she lived out of state), and it was a big night for me. I had cancelled plans to fly to New York to visit Mr. Plastic Picker’s family to stay back to give this speech. It was important for my family and especially to my father.
It’s 535AM and I’ve been up since 4am, and already sent all the work emails I needed and deployed assignments to the future leaders I am helping to guide. I sent reminders to the last stragglers in our department who are committee chairs to submit their committee descriptions. One stellar pediatrician sent a one-liner and I replied back “I do insist. I want people to take credit for what they do. I think you do more than that. Can you come up with 1-2 more lines? I want you to imagine what you want to do in this role as well. It’s actually a secret self-reflective process for the department – if that makes any sense. I want us to all psychoanalyze our professional lives.” To the ones who sent complete descriptions, I sent positive notes back. And then there are the others that sent over-blown descriptions of essentially defunct committees. I’m a new kind of Assistant Boss, non-judmental. We all live in our imaginary worlds, especially me.
A picture of a cooking error, and some of the comments stung a bit. But I put myself out there, and I learned something invaluable about myself.
July 30, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I posted a picture of a cooking error I made yesterday. I mixed up tajin for tahini. The “hummus” still tasted good and it was gone at dinner. The kids got fiber albeit from “hummus” that was runny with nothing more than pureed chickpeas and spices. It was actually probably healthier because there was no oil. Mr. Plastic Picker thought is was funny and I laughed as well, but I probably overshared and put it on Instagram. When I posted it I was laughing, but looking for “likes” from the 1000 or so connections I’ve made. The comments from those I know eventhough they were just laughing emojis stung a bit for various reasons.
Reached my 20 for the month. Got to reuse an old doggy food bag.
Juily 29, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It was a good day yesterday. It’s funny most of my climate work wins I posted on my actual personal facebook. They were real wins, so I wanted to share with the real people I know. I finished the Climate Reality Leadership Training and have my “Green Ring” now. And yesterday Bruce Bekkar told me that I was “putting [my] passion forward in such a powerful way, right out of the Climate Reality Training” and one of the other AAP Climate Change and Health said “AMAZZZZING” with many Zs. Twelve of us here had cosigned a letter regarding oil and gas setbacks, which is this complicated legislative process of trying to protect poor communities from oil and gas drilling sites. And our AAP Climate Change and Health Committee met for the first time, and I had the biggest smile on my face. I looked at their beautiful faces and how could I not have hope? True organic real connections between people. That is what I am trying to foster. Even if we make wins (which we will), the big win is that we are connected to eachother. It’s funny how I truly live these pithy quotes I used to just breeze through on Instagram and Facebook, leaders create more leaders.
I graduated today. Truly graduated from the Climate Reality Leaderhip Corp. The program wanted to virtually issue me my certificate on Sunday, but I wanted to finish the last two modules/projects before I claimed the certificate. It was a very important exercise to me, and I’m glad I did it. The funny thing is that this short project, which I call my “thesis,” is probably a million times more impactful than my actual senior thesis on cleft palate and degeneracy theory in college. I spent one entire year working on that one, which probably only 5 people ever really read. So here is the long more illustrative title, “Climate Change Affects My Patients: More premature births, more pediatric asthma, and more COVID-19 deaths especially of my patient’s parents and their grandparents causing more grief, despair and health inequities in already overburdened communities of color in the South Bay of San Diego.”
They taste pretty good! More like vegan breakfast cookies.
July 27, 2020
by drplasticpicker
We have HMO Family Practice residents that rotate through our clinic for their outpatient pediatric rotations. It’s their inauguration into the residency program, and we have the honor to teach them. I helped start this clinic site when it started with the first class about 8 years ago. My old mentor and I were the ones who developed and refined the lecture topics, schedule templates, developed how the rotation was organized and first started the residency breakfasts. As with most things, I’ve since handed it over to Dr. AF as I’ve moved onto other middle management roles.
Injured butterfly I saw yesterday. I think the little guy made it.
July 26, 2020
by drplasticpicker
There are a lot of environmental advocacy groups out there. Now we started another one, our American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Climate Change and Health Committee for our local chapter. There was a California bill AB 345 the oil and gas setbacks bill. Between the AAP Climate Change and Health coalition of all 4 California chapters, Climate Health NOW (which overlaps with many AAP Climate Change members), PHAC and Climate Action Campagins, and Climate Reality Leadership Group and my just being on the litter-picking Instagram committee – I literally received 20 emails about this. I had already signed a personal letter, and had already sent it to our committee. Our AAP Climate Change and Health local chapter already endorsed it. Bruce Bekkar is writing a letter on behalf of PHAC Climate Action Campaigns. And now we need individual members to lobby specific state representatives about it. And during our Climate Reality Training first local meeting, it came up again. And I get it, this one is important. The elephant in the room is climate emmissions, and this helps reduce emissions. There are a lot of climate groups and a lot of concerned citizens, and we all want the same thing.
Making dinner together, part of their Korean language lessons was to make Bi Bim Bap.
July 25, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I had heard about GRIT here and there. Mr. Plastic Picker and I send our kids to a fancy prep school. Mr. Plastic Picker had been a scholarship recipient from the top prep school in his area that was a feeder into Princeton, and he loved his experience. When we had our two children, it was one of those non-neogtiable things. He wanted our children to go to a similar independent school. As two MDs, we could afford it. As a product of a strong suburban public school program, it has always felt odd to have my kids in private school. They have done well though and more importantly they have strong connections in their school community, so we have committed to having them finish their education there. If you asked me to total the costs, I think I’d have a heart attack. But we can afford it because we still have a savings rate of over 50% our net income and we both work. Private school is our one indulgence and I actually try to dissuade other parents from it.
As a parent I’ve heard of the idea of Grit around the internet and school emails. Honestly, I just ignored those emails and discussions. It seemed to me the only people who talked about Grit were not living very hard-working lives. But then this morning I visited Retireby40’s blog, and he reposted an article about his Grit score and I was intrigued. https://retireby40.org/what-if-you-have-no-grit/ I took the test, I got a 5 out of 5! I am not surprised. I have a lot of Grit, as do most of my siblings.
Isn’t that a beautiful bird? It’s from somewhere in our house. I never noticed it before.
July 24, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I have been busy this week completing the on-line virtual Climate Reality Training. It’s been a big committment especially since I am working full time. Every evening I have had 1-2 hours of additional lecture or on-line work. But I have done it with joy. This is the last weekend and I feel accomplished that I will fulfill the requirements.
