I made up the term “Secondary Environmental Net Positives” when I started this blog about three years ago. Has it been three years? It seems gloriously longer and blogging and picking up trash has helped me slow down time. That’s the great thing about blogging, it allows me to be creative and order the world and my life in the way that makes sense to me. There has been so many more “secondary environmental net positives” than I ever imagined when I started this whole thing. Case in point, being on local TV TWICE last week. It was all sorts of craziness and over stimulating to be honest. But it was definitely a secondary environmental net positive because San Diegans saw me talk about climate and mental health.
But here, I’m going to return to the original “secondary environmental net positive” which is other things I’ve physically done other than picking up litter, to help the earth. This blogpost category keeps me motivated as I keep track on my iphone on the notes section. So here they are!
Yesterday ended up being a busier climate day than I thought. At dinner our daughter made a paella-like amazing dish of crispy rice and meatballs that she whipped together, just because she is one of those creative type minds. The tumeric gave it the yellow color, she explained, and she used tomatoes from the garden (I think she may have picked them herself while I was busy talking on the phone). The dinner was simply amazing with slices of organic white nectarines on the side. I was in the state of mind to really look at the dinner and appreciate the food and the moment, but my mind was still swirling with all the busyness of the climate projects of the day. Mr. Plastic Picker had picked her up from volleyball practice, She had come home with her father afterwards and I was in the middle of 2 hours of advocacy calls and meetings. At some point she glared at me because I was in the way of her getting a pan and listening to her music whilst cooking, and I was in my moment/zone of talking about a climate project over the phone with a colleague. When I saw her glare at me, I glared back at her.
We laughed at dinner as we tried to figure out what that odd moment was, as we don’t typically glare at each other. They were really intense glares my friends! It was just funny, and we were not mad at each other at all – but realized we were each in our zones and doing something we both feel passionate about. Those concentric circles of experiences were overlapping. Teen unwinding from volleyball practice in her happy zone of cooking, and her mother winding up on a big project and in my “I am being effective for the world” zone.
This was an epic week. An unexpectedly epic week. I had expected this week to be the lone eco-activist pushing for fossil fuel divestment. I even took the courage to present another power point on the issue, and then blogged about it. But no one clicked on that blogpost. Goes to show, most people are too busy playing their parts in the healthcare industry machinery and their roles in their own families. We are all so busy! I get it. Everyone wants to help but there isn’t one person showing the way. I’m trying to point my friends toward the way. And even a well researched and well deployed power point, didn’t do the trick.
protests on the Harvard campus re fossil fuel divestment.
August 18, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve presented at multiple high levels meetings and I’ve told the divestment story. I’ve shown pictures of students protesting at the UC campus and at Harvard. I talked about how members took over the Board of Directors within the Harvard governance system, and that is what forced the divestment issue. I showed pictures of union groups rallying regarding SB1173. I said specifically at least five times now to those in charge or with some level of influence, “there is a huge up swelling of grassroots support for fossil fuel divestment and this includes union groups. We need to be ahead of the curve to gain public support and gain trust equity within the community. It’s the right thing to do.”
I was met with the same expected response. Thank yous for my advocacy and passion. Thank you for understanding the system. Advice about how to proceed by taking smaller steps. I will continue to talk about divestment versus investment. I will work within our system. I’ll move our investments forward to more ESG funds and yes there are other projects to do like reducing the use of unnecessary surgical drapes.
But in the end, this blog is my emotional journey of a pediatrician who recognizes the existential crisis of climate change. And I had some big meetings and will continue to have these meetings, but I’m frustrated to the 100th degree. I’m a working stiff, who happily worked the staggered late shift last night. I’ve done so much for our medical system and I am very cost effective. And I’ve never wasted any money. And those that are sitting and being cogs in the HMO machinery. Those who are not listening to me, I get it. We are so big. But you are not being cost effective. You are wasting my time and my money. Fossil fuel investments are investments in climate disaster. What is your money and our real estate worth is the world keeps on warming?
We need to stop the existential threat of climate change, and fossil fuel divestment by our large HMO could pop the bubble in oil extraction. We could help bend the arc toward a sustainable future faster and maybe avert some of the dire catastrophic climatic disasters that are coming. The megaflood in California, the wildfires that are already here, the heat waves that are already here. But in the midst of all that, HMO you are asking me to take baby steps.
Yes I’ll work in the system and take baby steps. Someone else already tried to raise a rukus and got in trouble from another region. I’m a former Assistant Boss and I know not to do that. I’ll take baby steps and get that regional position that no one wants, because no one is being paid to do it – and I’ll do it for free. But in the end, I’m as crazy an environmentalist as those others that you fear who realizes what the threat is. I’m just old enough to have been in middle-management to know you need those within who support this.
But when the children come. When the protestors come. When the megafloods come (the wildfires and the drought are already here), I told you so. They won’t come for me because I’m Dr. Plastic Picker, and I was an inside agent anyway. I 100% told you so. And I put it on the blog and I’ve put it in at least 5 power point presentations. And that is it. This is the emotional journey of a litter-picking pediatrician who continues to try to move the needle on climate change within the very large frustrating HMO system.
Can hardly see their faces, so I think this picture is ok?
August 12, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
Yes! I’m blogging while taking the PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) Pre Course Assessment. It’s an every 2 year course that most pediatricians take, and all trainees take. Since it’s been almost 19 years since I graduated medical school – this must be the 9th time right?
I’m right now on Section 3 on question 8/29. Since it’s the pre-course assessment, I can toggle back and forth between blogging and answering questions. So far so good.
But I really wanted to take this morning while I’m on my PALS journey again for the 9th time, to use a play on words and think of the real PALS in life. This week has been one of self-reflection. I’ve been asked and asked myself, what if I was asked to lead again? And the honest answer is, there has been a silence from the other side and I now realize that it was meant to be. I think initially I was a bit hurt, but now I know it came from a place of love. I was honest and open about my burn out, and why I chose an alternate path. I’ve blogged about it at least 700 times. I realize now that when I articulated my hurt, that I was listened to. And those that were higher than me with responsibilities, understood and have left me alone. Sitting here taking PALS for the 9th time. I truly appreciate it.
I was with my daughter at her physical yesterday morning, and I chatted with her doctor and my friend. My daughter’s pediatrician is the remnant of my Assistant Boss times, the one that I’ll keep in contact with. We talked about my daughter, and in general my family’s health and I had a stark realization yesterday. The kids are healthier since I voluntarily stepped down from Assistant Boss. I’m healthier. And I think as evidence from this blog, the earth is healthier. I took time for myself yesterday and visited my brother’s family, and laughed with my nephews and my sister-in-law. We ate carbohydrates and knew that was part of a our healthy life, because we were creating food memories yesterday. And I didn’t do that before. The way I’m wired at work, is that when I commit to something I commit with my whole heart. And honestly 90 fractious pediatricians to love with my whole heart, was breaking it. I couldn’t understand why sometimes when my whole goal was just to make everyone’s life a little bit better by reducing after hours shifts and managing the part-time doctors and trying to find the perfect schedule for everyone, that sometimes folks would lash out. Or at least I felt they were lashing out at me. Those comments still hurt, and I’ve dealt with it and just put distance between myself and them. Now that I have no official position, it’s easier.
There was an important lunchtime regional meeting I needed to be at. I had to mentor the family practice residents and was mentoring also one of our premed Eco-America interns on our climate and art project. I was a good doctor in the morning, listening to my patients – some of them I have known since birth. In my new office in the new hallway of the clinic I have worked essentially my entire general pediatrics career, I’m allowing myself time to practice the way I think pediatrics should be practiced. I want to fundamentally heal children and families and that means taking time. The residents too take time. They deserve teaching and my consideration, as does my premed student.
But the only one I can control is myself, and my own time and my own efforts. This is partly why I’m satisfied to have finished my 5 years as Assistant Boss and not be beholden to anyone outside of my clinical duties, which I’m paid for. But in that balancing act and trying to get patients in, I didn’t finish into well into lunch. The regional meeting I wanted to present the #fightfor1point5 divestment talk finished early. I did get the opportunity to talk to our regional leads and review some of my thoughts.
My confusion today and yesterday is – will it really be just one slide? Will one slide or 5 slides be enough? I can put the rest of the slides in an appendix for sure, but is it really going to be that easy? I actually think it might be, because that is sometimes how great change happens. It’s the tide of history and the arc of collective human thought that bends toward justice, toward right – and I just happen to be within this tide this arc of history. It feels like the world knows what it needs to do. I don’t mind being the one to bring the proposal up. Everyone has leant forth some advice and basically said these big decision makers have just a few minutes to hear us, and keep it short and your request simple. But is divesting from fossil fuels really that simple? My request is simple, but it’s huge.
But perhaps it’s because they’ve been thinking about it too. This has been brought up before and in a more contentious way. I realized now I did dodge a big bullet by doing it my way. My son calls it weaponizing cuteness and working within the system. You can’t burn the entire institution down, and it’s not in my collaborative nature anyway.
So I’m here this morning and going to proceed with other projects and I need to do our taxes and be a volleyball mom this weekend. But I’m still confused but oddly think that this is meant to be. It’s probably going to take just one slide and the weeks I spent on my thought process and talking and preparing, was probably meant for my own growth and not to be showboated in front of others. That would be the greatest irony, because I was ready to talk and to change hearts. But the hearts were always there. And that is the beautiful thing about being open to nature, to emotions and to love – you see those hearts and can recognize it in others.
I still think I’m going to include this slide though. I just love it.
I’m choosing to be brave today. My eco-avatar me and the real me, that holds a position and a job. I have been working on this powerpoint for the last 2 weeks. It was mostly me sorting through my emails and messages from others, and collating my thoughts and furthering my understanding about fossil fuels and the importance of divestment.
My body was tired yesterday, but I realized after reflecting how much I had grown in my understanding of fossil fuel divestment and how involved I’ve been in this at the state level and nationally. My emotional fatigue and brain fatigue was well earned. I shut it off last night, and found a new sweet (but not too addictive) early 2010 K drama to watch. I slept deeply last night. When I do real impactful earthwork, that it what happens.
I posted around social media and the Facebook groups about the talk that I am giving. It’s more for me to remind myself to be brave in this work.
On our internal MD Facebook group, I was open and honest. And the positivity is real. The camaderie is real.
I’m still trying to process it all. It was such a beautiful day yesterday. Michael Tran who was our leader back in our undergraduate days was the Co-President of the Harvard Vietnamese Association and Director of RYSE, Refugee Youth Summer Enrichment. Mr. Plastic Picker and I had been involved with BRYE, Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment. Both had largely served the Boston Vietnamese refugee community back then. Dr. Michael Tran organized a reunion for Harvard Vietnamese Association alumni in California. A lot of people came. I mean A LOT!
A super interesting summer camp I learned about yesterday.
July 27, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
This is my emotional journal through burn out, climate grief, and the difficulties of being a middle-manager MD mother. This is me documenting what it’s like to be on the other-side. I’m happy these days and that happiness is important to me and the earth. It’s only by knowing myself and trying to know people and understand them, that I can try to nudge them to help me save the earth.
Matcha Green Tea from Costo. Now $20 from $15 but SOOOOOO Worth it!
July 24, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
I was feeling sorry for myself the last blog post. Thank you for the blog sympathy. I realized I hadn’t been blogging much and on the blog timeline, it must seem like I’m wallowing in my own self-pity of being a lone litter picker trying to save the earth. Underappreciated, hence the title of the last blogpost https://drplasticpicker.com/im-feeling-underappreciated-but-i-now-know-i-need-to-appreciate-myself-the-earth-taught-me-that/. That is untrue and I wanted to correct any misconceptions about the length of my self-wallowing.
