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.

I figured out a seemingly complicated spreadsheet for work. I’m actually responsible for a lot of things at work and can make impactful changes on health care quickly and I never did an academic pediatric fellowship nor an MPH. I did do two years of endocrine fellowship, but in retrospect – I had really wanted to do a pediatric pulmonary fellowship but there was a semi-irritating and very competitive former Rhodes Scholar that declared that fellowship spot was hers but then rejected it last minute. But I don’t think it was really meant to be, because the road through the only thing I never finished (pediatric endocrine fellowship) led me to my current position and led me to be co-founder of San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air. So while I am not a pediatric pulmonologist, I’m a wannabe pulmonologist but more importantly someone who fervently cares about pediatric asthma patients and the environment that affects them. When I hit a professional wall about two years ago, I actually thought about leaving my relatively cush current position to apply to pulmonology fellowship. But the dollars and cents made no sense. I’m glad I did not, because then I became Assistant Boss. Assistant Boss then drove me to burn out, but then I became Dr. Plastic Picker – defender of the earth! And I figured out that spreadsheet yesterday. Did you know that on Microsoft Excel you can do conditional formatting by color? It’s a really cool and amazingly simple and elegant way to look at data.

So who writes a blogpost about writing a blogpost? I do! Because this blog helps me figure out life. I eagerly wake up in the morning at 4 or 5AM, and I just load whichever picture on my phone strikes my fancy. And then I start writing. I check my finances at the same time, and periodically update it in the morning. We are in the midst of doing a rental property sale and planning on a 1031 property exchange. I am having real estate dreams about a condo in San Francisco. I am also going to invest 30,000 into a business soon as a silent partner. If these ventures end up successful, which I think they will, I will have more money to donate to the environment. And none of these financial moves involves flooding the world with more plastic!!! We have Girl Scouts this morning to start the second year as Cadettes. I am still one of the Co-Troop Leaders, but I’ve put down my ultimatum to other parents that we have to share the burden. This will be my seventh year as a Girl Scout Leader and in seven years I could have earned a PhD. There is an opportunity cost for everything. I need to focus more on environmental advocacy in the health care field. This weekend I also want to start our balcony garden with radishes and beets. I really want to start eating beets ,and I think I would more likely eat them if we plant them. It’s 530Am and it will start getting light soon. It’s Saturday and I have the glorious weekend off so I will jog to the beach this morning and pick up a big bag of trash. Have a wonderful Saturday everyone. Thanks for helping me figure out life as Dr. Plastic Picker. If you want to talk about the plastic in your life, and how you want to reduce it – comment below or reach out to me in real life. That’s the way to get my attention, tell me about the plastic frustrations!