November 16, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Drplasticpicker, the blog and the persona, has helped me tremendously. If the blog stopped here with my 40 odd posts, 70 bags of ocean bound plastic picked up, almost 400 items salvaged, and $500 donated to environmental causes – than it will have been an endeavor well worth my efforts https://drplasticpicker.com/donation-round-up/ .

But these simple actions and these straightforward blog postcards, have helped me become a better pediatrician. In fun I tell my families and my little patients about my new hobby. I receive bemused laughter and encouragement from the parents. But it is really my pediatric patients that understand. I look them in the eye and I tell them that their doctor is a bit silly, and has become drplasticpicker and trying to save the turtles https://drplasticpicker.com/the-sea-turtle-is-our-spirit-animal-at-drplasticpicker-com/. Some of my own family do not understand why. A few work acquaintances are dismissive. But my younger patients eyes open up wide. My little patients are delighted and tell me that the love turtles, love the earth and they want to come pick up plastic too.

The teenagers look at me with understanding, and they tell me about their climate strikes and their service clubs where they clean up beaches and donate to the World Wild Life Fund. One senior high school student who is a rower, told me of the plastic bags and cups that float around Mission Bay and Fiesta Island where she practices. She told me that if I wanted to find more plastic in Imperial Beach, to go north two jetties beyond the pier and there are lots of debris there. She also picks up plastic debris when her Varsity Crew team rows home from practice.

This chalk drawing is beautiful. My patient drew it today after we had a good conversation about fruit, and I listened to what she liked and did not like and made suggestions about keeping the peels on the apples for more fiber. And I suggested she eat more watermelon and strawberries to keep her heart healthy. I think she heard me as she surroudning her chalk drawing with an apple, a watermelon, a pumpkin, a stawberry and a big blueberry.

So I interwove into my counseling high fiber foods, ocean plastic, and the importance of families eating together and being out in nature together. So it was a busy but fun day in clinic, as I was engaged in my little patient’s lives and them in mine. And I got to keep my promise to a little girl that I have cared for since birth! Her mother and she agreed that I could post her chalk drawing, and now she is a published artist. Congratulations my patient. Drplasticpicker is so proud of you and I expect you to report back to me in one month all the different fruits and vegetables you have tried. And your drawing of the two turtles is very beautiful.