Category: Published: Getting My Words Out

October 1, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Plogging is jogging while picking up trash. Plalking is walking while litter picking. Plurfing is gathering plastic while surfing. #fillabag is when you find a bag and you fill it with trash. There is an entire lexicon and culture within the Instagram trash collecting world. You can clean the environment while jogging, walking, paddle-boarding, kayaking or surfing. You can make the trash you find into art and be an artivist. You can knit with discarded fishing lines into a scarf like @grannyplastic. You can spend hours picking up litter or just 2 minutes like #2minbeachcleanup. You can even be an awesome dog in the Netherlands like Bob The Plog Dog. The only rule is that you have to show some of the litter you pick and care about the environment. I am Dr. Plastic Picker, this community’s unofficial litter-picking pediatrician. I am a Harvard-educated pediatrician and Assistant Chief of Pediatrics at Kaiser San Diego. I am Co-Chair of AAP-CA3 San Diego Climate Change and Health Committee which is currently the largest AAP committee chapter in the country. But I’d rather be known as Dr. Plastic Picker.

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September 26, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I have to write the Eco-America blog post today. It’s 300-600 words which is shorter than my usual post which are about 800 words. There is a 50% chance that it will be cross published onto the American Academy of Pediatrics National Blog. One of my former co-residents at Mans Greatest Hospital was published on the AAP site last week regarding autism, but she went into academic medicine and did the Mans Greatest Hospital General Pediatrics Academic Medicine Fellowship. She was mentored by the past AAP President Dr. Jim Perrin and has published a lot of papers. So I want to spend some time of the blogpost, so will write it this weekend. I try not to compare myself to others back in my former training program, but I still do. I do have to say that I was mentored by the ocean and a community of Instagram Litter Pickers. It doesn’t feel natural to me to just write that kind of blogpost on this blog, because the Eco-America blog is for a different audience. I want to write “the truth” about my activism but filtered for a mainstream audience. On this blog, this readership sees the truth. Indeed, I think of this readership as Mr. Plastic Picker who likes me to read my blogposts to him in the morning when he is brushing his teeth. That my husband who studied Shakpeare and is a talented short story writer himself likes my writing is meaningful. At some point, I hope he takes up writing again.

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September 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

When I started this journey of climate activism and picking up ocean plastic pollution a year ago, I never thought that writing would be my way to make a difference. I began blogging at 4am this morning, earlier than I usually do. I had to work yesterday at Pediatric After Hours Clinic and it was a relatively quiet and fun shift. I did pick up a hip click that two other doctors missed so I felt good about that. But anytime my schedule is a bit off – my sleep is disrupted. Writing like ocean plastic picking tends to quiet my mind. I love the sound of the clicking on my key board. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere, eventhough most mornings I’m just sitting at my kitchen table. The air purifier is running this morning and that is a stark reminder of our climate crisis. It’s been running all night and stable in the 30s PM 2.5 but when you open the door, it shoots up to the mid 50s. Before the wildfires began it was in the single-digits. My father-in-law is moving around the kitchen quietly making his coffee. It’s usullay just him and me in the mornings, and he tries to not make too much noise. I think he thinks I’m doing really important things on the computer, eventhough most of the time I’m writing nonsence. But the air purifier is running today and we will buy an additional one for him, because increased particulate matter and air pollution is associated with increased cardiac death in older adults.

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1. An Anatomy Partner Lost: What Would Chris Have Thought About COVID-19? https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/04/an-anatomy-lab-partner-lost-what-would-chris-have-thought-about-covid-19.html
2. How Ocean Plastic Picking Made Me A Better Pediatrician https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/12/how-ocean-plastic-picking-made-me-a-better-pediatrician.html
3. Fossil Fuel Setbacks Rejected by California Senate Committee https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/aug/05/fossil-fuel-setbacks-rejected-california-senate-co/
4. Meet Dr. Plastic Picker: Pediatrician’s Eco-Plan Begins in PB https://www.pbmonthly.net/profiles/people/story/2019-12-04/dr-plastic-picker