February 16, 2020

by drplasticpicker

If you know me in real life, you know that if I had not been a pediatrician than I really should have been a Trust and Estates Attorney or a Personal Financial Advisor. I find personal finances fascinating, because the same way folks make irrational decisions in their personal lives or in their health decisions, they do the same in their finances. Personal finance is at it’s core pscyhology. It was taken me to my 40s to realize you cannot fix people’s financial problems. Even if you draw out a personal financial plan for them and hand them essentially every detail they need to make themselves financially free, they still won’t.

But since I have become drplasticpicker, I am very hopeful! Just like my mission to save the planet, I have to do it by not telling people what to do – but rather showing them different possibilities. Most won’t listen, but some will begin their journey and hopefully end up in a better financial place.

I am hoping that I give you small glimpses into our personal finance journey, especially to our Young MDs. So here are Ten Financial Tips to Young MDs.

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February 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

There are those rare people in life that embody joy and happiness. They are sometimes irreverent but always positive, and make those of us who are staid middle-aged middle-managers look at events and people from a different angle, maybe even upside down! And when one of those rare people is a MD, than they are even closer to unicorn status.

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February 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Martin et. al. just published this month an article that explains it all, “Nature contact, nature connectedness and associations with health, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviors.” I have to email the HMO librarian about getting the article, because it cost $39.99. But the highlights are that

• Visiting nature > once/week was associated with better health.
• Nature connectedness was positively related to eudaimonic wellbeing. I had to look up eudaimonic, it means “a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous.”
• Nature connectedness was positively associated with pro-environmental behaviors.

This explains it all. I sometimes was unsure if I was going on the right path, but this is my path. I need to lead people to the beach to experience nature and also to clean the earth. I will try to pick our next dedicated beach cleaning soon.

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February 13, 2020

by Harish Joshi

Hello! My name is Harish Joshi. I am from Nepal. I am 18 and a high school graduate. This is my first blog which is about my journey of environmental activism.

Like many of us, I sometimes used to think about the environment in my childhood. But these thoughts used to fade away after a while. There is no proper waste management system in my village. When I used to study in grade 9, I made a dustbin in my house for the first time. There aren’t much dustbins in the towns. The condition is worse in villages. People are not much aware about pollution here. But slowly this is changing. This is the current situation here.

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February 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It is 311AM on Wednesday morning, and I am not sure what happened last night. My body is a bit out of wack. It is less often out of wack then before, but anytime we have a middle managment meeting – my circardian rhythm gets shuffled. Only good things happened at the meeting, and I noticed all the nurse managers had mostly reusable coffee mugs. Even the big boss commented on how wasteful all those little plastic creamer containers were, and looked up at me and gave me a kind smile. They know that I am Dr. Plastic Picker and I have not been fired yet. The democratic primaries are underway, and for the first time in years I am watching to see what happens. Again Dr, Plastic Picker is non-partisan.

I am a single issue person, I just want a liveable earth with oxygen and fish and beautiful butterflies. But with those dreams, there is so much to be Hopeful for this Wednesday. Here is our Five Reasons to Be Hopeful, 2-12-2020.

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February 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I have felt grateful for many things. I am grateful to have been raised by two loving parents, who raised me with an abundance of kindness and genorosity. I am grateful to have been a voracious reader as a child and now can call myself a real blogger! My own grandmother was rich in heart and family but poor in monetary wealth and unable to read in her native language. I am grateful to have had dedicated teachers especially in our high school’s IB Program https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-remembers-i-was-weaned-on-activism/.

There is an emerging medical literature on the power of gratitude. In fact, at one of our big corporate meetings they spoke about gratitude exercises and gave us the book above https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-plastic-picker-agitates-for-the-ocean-at-a-regional-meeting/.

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February 10, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s Sunday morning and I usually would go to the beach, but my body is very tired and I am afraid I might fall. I am trying to stay in tune with my body and most mornings I have the energy and the need to go plastic picking. But last night, we had our department party and it was a big success. It was fun to put on the little black dress I wear just once a year and fancy sparkly wedge heels. Mr. Plastic Picker agreed that I looked nice. Mr. Plastic Picker looked very nice too in his blue blazer from Macys. Despite leaving early the fun and the revelry early at 9pm, drplasticpicker is too tired to go plastic picking. Plus I have to work this afternoon at our after hours clinic from 130-5pm. Humans are not meant to stay up late, and the world is not meant to have so much light pollution as humans are partying late into the late. Light pollution is causing the insect apocolypse https://drplasticpicker.com/xeres-invertebrate-society-can-a-pediatricians-avatar-drplasticpicker-help-save-the-western-monarch-butterfly/.

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February 9, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I have been meaning to write this blogpost about 6 weeks ago, but it wasn’t quite the right time. I had just sketched out the title, and the topic has been percolating in my tension-headache-free mind https://drplasticpicker.com/tension-headaches-drplasticpicker-cures-myself/. But yesterday I saw one of my beloved families that I have cared for for over 10 years. They were one of the first families that I was their “pediatrician.” I appreciate them sticking with me because sometimes I wonder how much I knew 10 years ago when I had just finished a research year at NIH and had been mostly doing only endocrine clinical work. I had not looked at tympanic membranes in a long time. I remember thinking, gosh I would rather have a new onset type 1 diabetic patient than a rule out ear infection.

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February 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It is 72 hours since the 2nd Office Beach Clean Up. Usually I will tell families if the fever is gone after 72 hours, than no need to come back. The virus has subsided and it is over. Perhaps when the contagion is good https://drplasticpicker.com/behaviors-are-contagious-i-am-trying-to-spread-a-good-contagion/, the euphoria and goodwill can last well after the 72 hour period. Perhaps it can last a lifetime.

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