Category: Climate Advocacy (AAP/Climate Reality/ClimateHealthNOW)

January 23, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I listened to my body yesterday. I came home from a busy day in clinic where I missed doing a telephone appointment because I had to rush off to a pediatric quality meeting. We sat at the meeting and got much more accomplished than any other meeting group that I have been a part of, but still the mollasses that is getting big corporate groups to a goal frustrates me sometimes. It’s important to listen to each other, and to take in consideration people’s opinions. But when people’ opinions are tied to what they are getting paid for, sometimes one does not know the motivation for what their opinons are. Is it some pointless politically manuevering in a different department? Is it some kind of bonus or monetary carrot or threatened budget cut that underlies that statement? Office and corporate politics are complicated when money is involved. But at least I got everyone to agree to stop the plastic water bottles at this 10 person meeting. That is 100 less for 2020. Little wins matter.

(more…)

January 21, 2020

by drplasticpicker

The hours I have spent transversing the shore and the sandcliffs, mostly by myself, has centered my mind and reconnected me with the rhythms of the earth. I am by nature a more solitary and introverted person, which will surprise many who know me in real life. Social gatherings usually drain me, and I need to be by myself or with loved ones to feel normal again. It was the cacophany of the modern world and the spinning chaos of management that almost broke me. I have written about my bout with tension headaches that are now gone, thanks to the ocean plastic picking and the time outside. And now I am whole again, and every time I feel irritated or petty – I make sure to take a walk and pick up some plastic, and then I am drplasticpicker again and know where my path lies.

(more…)

January 6, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It is Monday, January 6, 2020. It is the first full work day back after the 2-week stretch of the holiday break. The holiday break is when staffing is the most difficult at work, as nurses and pediatricians want and need to be off with their families. This year the 2-week holiday break went on a crash-course with influenzae season. Trying to predict how well the influenzae vaccine will work and how bad or not so bad the influenzae season will be is impossible until April of each year.

(more…)

November 23, 2019

by drplasticpicker

“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Rules the World” was a poem written in the 1800s by American poet William Ross Wallace. Before it became a title of that god-awful scary misogynistic 1980s movie, it was a poem that glorified the power of motherhood. The second stanza,

Infancy’s the tender fountain,
    Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
    From them souls unresting grow —
Grow on for the good or evil,
    Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
    Is the hand that rules the world. – William Ross Wallace

(more…)

November 7, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I have joined twitter. Why have I joined twitter? That is where the children are and the children are the ones that need to be protected and supported, and drplasticpicker is a pediatrician and a mother. I need to go protect the children. When Greta Thunberg gave her UN Speech and castigated the adults in the room, this battle-worn pediatrician had tears rolling down her eyes. What have we done? The children think of us as “Do Nothing Adults.” Indeed, it cannot be all Trump’s fault as he has only been president for 3 years. We were all here and we did nothing or did not do enough. Climate change is happening and we have 15 years to mitigate these changes. I am in my mid 40s, and I have until 60 to help.

(more…)

November 6, 2019

by drplasticpicker.com

To Vaping Companies,

My name is drplasticpicker and I am a real life board certified pediatrician who cares for 2000 children in Southern California. I also take regular walks along a half-mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean that borders a college student area. I pick up plastic debris before it goes into the ocean. In my over 60 walks along the beach, I find vaping pens, devices and caps every day.

(more…)

November 6, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I wanted to do a follow up post regarding the $8 I found on the beach two mornings ago. As my mother had suggested, we decided to use the found cash to buy food for the San Diego Food Bank. I told the kids I would match it with another $8. So those vague plans to donate it were filed in the back of my mind, and the cash left on the kitchen counter.

Today after school, I mentioned to my middle-school daughter that we could go ahead and see how much healthy/less plastic wrapped food we could get to help feed some needy San Diegans. She replied that she was caught up with her homework so we could go today. So off we went down Friars Road in our plug-in hybrid, off to Food4Less – bargain grocer.

(more…)