Why I started this blog

Hi! My name is Jessica and I’m a native New Yorker, currently living in Dallas, Texas where I work as a practicing neurologist. While I have many interests outside medicine including writing, reading, traveling and discovering new restaurants and coffee shops, the main impetus for starting this blog was to have a place to express my passion (and sometimes frustration) about social, political and health issues. When George Floyd was murdered and many people were expressing their outrage and showing solidarity with #Blacklivesmatter, I noticed that some influencers and those in the public sphere stayed silent or made half-hearted statements that did not add anything of value to the movement or the conversation. That irked me. Similarly, the COVID pandemic has affected us all yet, you wouldn’t know that looking at the social media accounts of some public figures. As someone in healthcare who has witnessed firsthand how COVID has affected patients and uprooted our hospital systems and also experienced the personal struggles of raising a baby and keeping my family safe, I felt it was important to be in the conversation. I decided to be more intentional about who I follow on social media and cleansed my social media of accounts that did not use their platform to advocate for social issues. I follow many accounts that are focused on food, fashion, travel, beauty etc. because those things are all parts of life, but I think we are all multi-faceted and can discuss where to get the best latte while also discussing topics like voter suppression. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea (or coffee) and that’s okay, but I hope we can move towards a space where more influencers and those in the public domain utilize social media to create change on deeper levels.