December 23, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It’s 6am and my circadian rhythm is set and drplasticpicker is up! I am an early riser especially now that my sleep is more restful. Our family is in Las Vegas for a brief night at the New York New York hotel. When the plastic picker children wake up, we will head out and drive to our final vacation destination. We decided to drive rather than fly, as we take the climate crisis seriously. Mr. Plastic Picker is driving our trusty red Prius which averages 50 MPG on the highway. We don’t need to rent a car when we get there! Ca-ching ching! The 1500 mile round trip from our home to our mountain destination would have expelled 1.12 tons of carbon if we had flown, instead we will contribute 0.23 tons of carbon. Driving expels only 18% of the carbon of an equivalent flight according to carbonfund.org since we have four in our car. And this adventure of environmentalism has given us new experiences. Let me describe how choosing to drive and not fly made the Impossible Burger possible, but reminded us the home-cooking is best for our health and the environment.

(more…)

December 21, 2019

by drplasticpicker

This post is 1 week late, but better later than completely forgotten! Having to be accountable to our blog readers is great. There are so many made-up tasks we have given ourselves in life, but at least the tasks I have assigned myself through drplasticpicker.com have environmental positives. We are about to leave on our road trip from Southern California to Utah. This trip will entail a different series of blog post – so I want to mentally close out what happened in Newport Beach. Plus, my mother-in-law (who I love and respect) is annonying me slightly and writing is a good way to let off steam. Mr. Plastic Picker’s parents live with us and we get along 99.9% of the time, but it’s been 15 years and once in a while my mother-in-law and I will annoy each other.

(more…)

December 19, 2019

by drplasticpicker

So much of life and career success is about timing and support. Many of the reasons why I am in middle-management is that I had my children with Mr. Plastic Picker relatively young while in residency and fellowship. I’m in my 40s, and while many of my same-age physician cohort still have young children – mine are older. I have more time and energy to focus on work (and plastic picking!) It is the nearing the week of Christmas. I remember as a young physician being stressed this time of year trying to arrange for childcare or school camps, coordinating work-schedules with an even busier physician spouse, trying to cover a half-staffed clinic, trying not to get sick and still being there for my own children. Mr. Plastic Picker and I just hit 10 years with our organization. This milestone reminds me how important it is for us to support our younger colleagues.

(more…)

December 17, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Our blog wants to thank all the children who submitted drawings to our first inaugural drawing contest! We had a total of 6 entries. Each entry will been featured in our blog’s instagram/Facebook, paired with different poems or articles. Each child who entered will receive a reusable tote bag per nuclear family member and a certificate. The competition was fierce and drplasticpicker walked around the office and did a straw vote, and the winner is the marker drawing above which is Splash by Daniela, age 11. As promised, the winner which is “Splash” above, will be featured on our blog’s reusable tote bags.

(more…)

December 16, 2019

by drplasticpicker

One of the best parts of my job as a middle manager is I get to work with our young pediatricians. I am tasked in my position with recruiting, orienting and “managing” them so that we keep our pool of talent strong. Through the last three years, these young pediatricians, almost a decade younger than I, have taught me so much about the world, life and relationships. In turn, I try to impart some pediatric knowledge but mostly financial advice to them. When I’m chatting with them about cases or their schedules, I sprinkle in non-sequiturs about interest rates, loan consolidation, 529 plans, and keeping your expenses low. I know, I’m kind of an odd middle manager. Although I have to say, my old residency mentor Young-Ho Yoon taught me much the same when I was an intern. I remember one of his talks was about investing in a Roth IRA! That’s a thorough senior resident https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-young-ho-yoon-pediatrian-and-environmentalist-1/. I do have to say, I think I’ve in turn also helped increase the young group I mentor’s collective net worth! My father was an accountant so personal finance comes naturally to me.

(more…)

December 16, 2019

by drplasticpicker

There once was a tidal marsh, wetlands rich with sea grass, insects and shorebirds.

1852 United States Army Corps created a dike

1946 dredging began

1962 dredging ended

(more…)

December 15, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I am writing to you from the far off lands of Newport Beach, California. Mr. Plastic Picker and I are at a corporate meeting for our organization to celebrate 10 years.  We are staying at a super fancy hotel where they have valet parking at $30 a night, but the hotel room is covered as are our meals for the day’s programs.  Ten years ago when we started with this organization, the corporate rah-rah and indoctrination used to scare me. Others would ask me half in jest, “Did you drink the kool-aid?” But in all seriousness, all large organizations have similar models and I do believe that ours is more egalitarian. I do believe that here independent thinking is encouraged if you work through the system. I have been able to enact positive changes as a middle manager. But I remain in my heart drplasticpicker wanting to take my own path. But I am here, and I will partake and enjoy. We will sit with our friends who started as young physicians with us together 10 years ago and hear about how the corporation will take care of us.  But I will be thinking the entire time, how can I take care of the earth?  Because in the end, we cannot rely only on large organizations but also must make the changes within ourselves. 

(more…)

December 14, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Today our middle management meeting was cancelled. We have iPhones with our meeting schedule on the iPhone calendar. There was a strike through the CANCELLED MEETING so I thought the CANCELLED MEETING was cancelled, and therefore we had a meeting. I showed up. No one was there. I was happy it was cancelled but did vaguely think slightly annoyed “If I had known, I could have picked up more plastic.” Today marks the moment when I reached my 100th instagram follower (real followers not fake followers, I did not pay anyone to boost nothing!) and 100th bag of ocean bound plastic collected, and 70th blog post. It’s been a busy 3 months!

(more…)

December 12, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes our family chooses “to do nothing” in order to do something. Last spring, I was lucky to accompany our hospital’s residency program on a trip to the Andes Mountains in Peru. I was able to fulfill one of my dreams as the attending pediatrician and helped >400 children of the indigenous Quechuan people. It was a trip and 2 weeks that I will never forget.

(more…)