Green Challenge #5

A quick check in for how I'm doing with the green challenges.  Overall, I would say pretty well.  I'm not going to lie, but I have cheated a little bit this past week riding the elevator.  I rode it more than I should have.  I guess I was just being lazy.  I'll keep trying. Tomorrow I will be at the airport and will try to do better once I have checked my bag.
As for last week's challenge and not using anymore plastic/reusable bags - so far so good. 

This week's challenge, with a little bit less research than I would have liked, but I have a good excuse.  Excuse:  I had to work until 6pm today, then drove 1.5 hrs to Chico, finished packing my suitcases for Costa Rica, quickly ate dinner, submitted my residency rank list and now am writing this blog soooo...I think you can forgive me for lack of research.

Green Challenge #5:  I'm giving up my hair dryer!

Again, this one comes with a few exceptions.  I am allowed to use a hair dryer for special occasions.  Examples of upcoming special occasions include:  Birthday, Match Day, Graduation.  The ultimate goal will be to use it as little as possible.  I'll try to remember to post my indiscretions and let you know when I use my dryer - just to give you an idea of how well I'm sticking with it!

I can guarantee you I will not be using for a FULL month.  How can I guarantee that you ask?  Well, I'm not taking my hair dryer to Costa Rica with me :)

Ok - so how's this eco-friendly.  Well, hair dryers suck up A LOT of energy.  My hair dryer draws up to 1875 watts of electricity (most draw between 1200-1875), which is more wattage than it takes to use a microwave (run around 750-1100).

A quick wikipedia search for watt (mainly because I was curious) states:

A watt is the rate at which work is done when an object is moved at a speed of one meter per second against a force of one newton.  Huh? 

examples: 
-  climbing a flight of stairs is doing work at a rate of about 200 watts
(my hairdryer does work at a rate 9x's greater than climbing a flight of stairs!)
-  a typical automobile engine yields power output of 25,000 watts while cruising
(sooo running a car uses only 13x's the amount of work as my hairdryer?)

*warning - I have no idea if my calculations are correct, but regardless - I know I'll be saving energy by plugging in one less appliance!

Wish me luck & now you'll understand why my hair will be in a perpetual pony tail for all of my Costa Rican photos :)

Oh the Places We Could Go!

I mentioned previously that Sief and I were starting to make our rank list.  As you know, I have traveled quite a bit over the past several months!

Statistics anyone?! 

In the course of a little over 3 months...

-  I interviewed in 21 different cities, some cities I interviewed at more than one program for a grand total of 24 interviews

-  I visited 22 airports, some of them more than 5x's

Let's say I'm excited and relieved to be done with the process.  It was fun meeting new people and learning about the innovative things happening with family medicine around the country, but I'm glad to be moving on to the next step. 

 

I feel like this dude with the possibilities of where to go swirling around in a big mesh of colors and confusion.  So many different things to compare.  Location, the people, the program, the educational opportunities.  It's so hard - every place has it's advantages and disadvantages.  Then of course there is the heart factor or gut feeling.  For that I imagine myself on match day opening the envelope and how I will feel if it says Program X and then I imagine if it's Program Y.  Those imaginary excited feelings are the gut factor :)

Soooo....now that the interview season is over and my family medicine inpatient rotation is coming to an end what will keep me busy?  I leave Saturday for....San Jose, Costa Rica!  That's right - a month abroad studying medical Spanish in a foreign country living with a host family, is what I am up to!

I'll be sure to blog from there :)

Green Challenge #4

If you are still with me after last week's post - thanks for sticking it out!  I will talk a little bit more about last week's challenge at the bottom of this post under a disclaimer line in case you don't want to read more about "that stuff." 

This week's challenge, sadly is not creative, but will take a lot of effort.  It's hard for me to put a ton of time into thinking about my green changes, because I am working nearly 70 hours a week right now.  Soooo...I'm repeating my failed green challenge from last new years. 

Green Challenge #4:  No more plastic or non-reusable bags

This means no more plastic grocery bags, no more plastic produce bags, no more shopping bags from the mall.  Only reusable bags that I either buy at a store or bring myself.  I feel more prepared for this challenge now than I did last year, because I have accumulated more reusable bags since last year.  When I get back to Pennsylvania I plan to make some cloth produce bags to take to the store to buy my fruits & veggies and by store I mean farmers market ;)

There are benefits to giving up plastic bags for you too!  Some stores will give you 5-10 cents back for using your own bag and...a reusable bag is much cuter than a plastic bag!

My favorite new bag, which Sief bought me while in San Francisco ahs a coupel of cute pockets and is extremely useful!

In case you can't read it.  The little boy says "How come you don't come to see me anymore?" 
And the little girl replys "I'm conserving my energy." 
:)



photo taken from: http://angrylittlegirls.com/index.html

 Here are some facts about the environmental impact of plastic bags:

• Globally plastic bags cause an estimated 1 million birds & 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtle deaths each year from entanglement in or ingestion of them
• there are tons of carbon green house gas emmisions put into the air each year due to the manufacturing of plastic bags
• between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year
• ~60-100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world's plastic bags eacy year
• most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade, some figures indicate that they could take over 1000 years - either way it's waaayyyy longer than our lifetime!!!

***Disclaimer*** time to talk about how last week's green challenge went

No more tampons - how did the week go without you ask?  It went great.  The first day was a little weird and it took some getting used to, but after that it only got better from there.  It was easier - no hassle of having to worry if I had tampons in my bag or with me.  I knew that I was set - couldn't really lose it.  Also, using my moon cup saved TONS of toilet paper.  It made me realize how much extra toilet paper I use when on my period, because each tampon gets individually wrapped.  So not only did I save money on not needing to buy tampons, I also save money, because I'll be using less toilet paper and....let me tell you toilet paper is BAD BAD BAD for the environment, but I guess that could be a story for another day. ;)

If you have more questions regarding the moon cup and my personal experience with it - please feel free to email me if you would like more intimate/gorey details.

The Next Step!

So, I've written some about the interview trail and I can happily say that it is finally coming to an end.  I have my last interview this coming Monday and then I am finished!!!!  woo hoo!!  Don't get me wrong it has been great to be able to travel to all of these different residencies and learn about the unique opportunities avaliable through different programs.  There are some very unique opportunities out there.

It's interesting too, because the path my career will take seems to have changed slightly during the interview trail.  I was often asked, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"  I had a standard answer, which was really quite honestly doing a lot of things.  I see myself someday working abroad (either months at a time or a few years), I also enjoy teaching and can see myself one day working at a residency program.  I also want to deliver babies for a while, probably not for my entire career, but definitely for a while.  I enjoy women's health and moms and babies.  Do I see myself working in a hospital after residency?  I'm not quite sure about that one yet, maybe if I were at a residency program I would.  Group visits are something I want to give a try at some point in my career and the thing that I have added since being on the residency trail is that I think someday I want a Master's in Public Health.  It's funny because I have always said I enjoyed family medicine partly for the preventative medicine part of it and before starting the interview trail I never really looked beyond an individual patient, but with a little bit more education - I could in theory reach out to entire communities and populations.  Maybe someday even end up in some adminsitrative work.
    It's crazy because there are still so many options open to me through my choice of family medicine.  Anyways...back to the title of the post - The Next Step.  Now is the time that Sief and I make our rank list.  This is when we compile a list 1-10 (or the number of places we interviewed) and rank them in our order of preference.  Once we have completed our list we submit it and the residency programs do the same.  They rank the people they interviewed 1-100 (or whatever number) and then we wait... and wait....and wait...until March 18th to find out if we matched and where.  That's 55 days away.

Let the countdown begin, because it will be here before we know it!  We're one step closer :)

Green Challenge #3

First I'll check with you about the last weeks challenge - taking the stairs. It's actually be going pretty well. Everyday I climb multiple flights of stairs, because the hospital cafeteria is in the basement and our call/work room is on the 3rd floor. We have patients on floors ranging from 4-8 and sometimes even higher. I can feel myself getting less out of breath after I've climbed sets of stairs by the end of the week, so it must doing some good for my heart. Only one little mishap. I climbed from the 8th floor to the 12th floor one day, only to find that the 12th floor was locked and you needed a key card to get access, well my ID badge wouldn't let me in, so back down the stairs I went. I took the elevator the second time because I was meeting the rest of my team.

*disclaimer* this week's green challenge is one that will probably make my largest eco-impact yet, but is also a little on what some might consider the disgusting side. You can choose to continue reading (at your own risk), because from here on out it's going to get a little bit personal (and I mean in a female kind of way)




Green Challenge #3

3. No more tampons!

What?! No more tampons? Am I insane? Nope and I'm not switching to cloth pads or anything like that (ewwww...). It's called a menstrual cup. What's a menstrual cup you ask? Well it's a little silicone or rubber cup that you put in your vagina and it stays there during the day and collects, just the way a tampon would. The difference is when you go to change your cup, you just pull it out and dump the contents in the toilet and then either rinse the little cup out or wipe it clean with some toilet paper. TaDa! No more tampons.

My personal one is a moon cup. There are different brands out there, but this is the one my mother bought me for Christmas. I had been talking about buying one for a while, but....was a little nervous and not quite ready to make the leap. I guess she decided for me. I will admit that I have tried it once and it seemed to work pretty well. This next week, I will put it through the true test of surviving through an entire period with just my moon cup.


image taken from: http://blog.gladrags.com/2009/06/

The cup sits inside and is comfortable and cannot be felt, just like a tampon. The difference though....is that now I am saving both the environment and money, because my moon cup will last up to 10 years!

Ok, ok, ok - I know what you are thinking....this has got to be gross. I mean you have to stick your hand up where?! and then you have to dump out that nastiness. I'm not going to lie to you, that it will probably be somewhat disgusting and disturbing, which I will report back next week, but I have heard that most people who try the cup, never go back.

My motivation is found in my imagination - I picture myself standing in a room and try to see a pile of tampons, applicators, boxes, etc all piled up in a big heap and try to estimate over my lifetime what that would look like. Now that's DISGUSTING! Also, I figure as a medical student I have stuck my fingers in and touched bodily fluids (with gloves on of course) much grosser than my own. Also, you know when you travel and you have to pack a big bag full of tampons, or keep extra one's in your purse, etc - not anymore. My moon cup is small and easily transportable and next month when I'm flying to costa rica will take up very little room in my suitcase compared to what a bag of tampons would take up! Yes -more room for souvenirs.


Now down to the figures:

• It's estimated that 2 billion sanitary pads & 7 billion tampons are dumped into the North American environment each year!
  

• An average American woman will contribute 10,000 pads and tampons to landfills, or approximately 300 pounds of trash in her menstruating lifetime!!!!

• In addition most tampons & pads have adhesives, additives, and bleaching products that are used in making them! These can't be good for our bodies or the environment.

And now I ask the question to you?



I'll report back next week with my findings :)

Green Challenge #2

So....I'll admit last week's change was an easy one to make and well I had been turning the faucet off while brushing my teeth for a while. This week we be a more difficult change to stick too.

A lot of people make New Year's Resolutions to get into shape, lose weight, etc. This week my green change will help me stay in shape as well.

2. No more elevators or escalators.

There are a few exceptions that I will lay out here. I will only take an elevator or escalator if:
- on rounds in the hospital the team is taking the elevators
*you see I am still low man on the totem pole and must follow the leader while
rounding on our patients in the hospital, but when visiting patients on my own, the
stairs it shall be

- I am climbing more than 10-12 flights of stairs, depending on the shoes I'm wearing
*Currently at UC Davis, our little home base is on the 3rd floor and the highest level is
12, so for this next month I will be taking the stairs A LOT

- I have 2 or more suitcases when traveling



Now....I did a little bit of research on the computer and sadly making this eco-friendly change is probably better for my health than for the environment. But I feel it is a step in the right direction and the idea behind it is good, also it will make me work and be conscious of this change constantly over the next month.

The following statistics I found on a few green blogs, one sited Otis elevators as the original source.

Per round trip (20 floors): 100 Wh. This is about how much a desktop computer and monitor use running for 30 minutes.

Per floor (one direction, 3 meters): 2.5 Wh. That is approximately 1/2 the amount of energy it takes to recharge a cellphone battery.

Over a lifetime that can add up to A LOT!

Strap on your sneakers and start walking - stop standing! Just imagine that music is playing under your feet as you walk!

Back to the daily grind

I've been lucky for the past couple of months, because my rotations have been pretty laid back and chill. Today was a hit the ground running, welcome back to the world of inpatient medicine. Well, I guess I didn't have to quite hit the ground running, but my inpatient team did. We had quite a few new patients over the weekend and a couple of them were critical patient's requring quite a bit of time.

Today was my first day of a month at UC Davis, on the family medicine inpatient service. Tomorrow is more like my first official day when I will have my own patient to follow and have a parking permit and a badge - the whole works...haha

Anyway I have a month of looking forward to 12 hr days. Rounds start at 7:30, but I have to see my patient's before that and I have sign out to the night team starting at 6pm, so I probably won't be leaving the medical center until 6:30pm. Wish me luck!

I'll blog as much as possible if interesting things happen and for sure every Sunday for the green challenge! How's it going - shutting off that water while brushing your teeth?
Not too hard of a change. And I thought of some more things that make it green - it's less energy to have to purify and pump that extra water to your faucet!

And...I am feeling much better than yesterday, but still have a little bit of a head cold.

Green Challenge #1

1. Turn the facet off while brushing my teeth.

This is a simple easy change - many of you may already be doing this, but you may not have known that this easy change can save up to 3,000 gallons of water per year!

Some random water facts for you:

- less than 1% of all the water on Earth can be used by people, the remaining 99% is either salt water or frozen (but I guess if we continue along the path that we are then we will have greater access to the frozen stuff)

- an average US household uses close to 260 gallons of water everyday.

For more water conserving facts visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes/ConserveWater.htm


This is a bit of a short post, but I'm not feeling my best and tomorrow I start my rotation at UC Davis! Wish me luck on my first change :)