Eureka! We’re heading to Los Angeles on Friday, February 18th for school vacation after a long Boston winter of cold, and California Dreaming. I first went to California in 1996 for a great trip with my parents and loved walking at Fort Funston, San Francisco; in Sausalito; and in the Marin Highlands in the Redwood forest. I didn’t look seriously at California for college or medical school, but after 9 years on the East Coast, it was time to head west. I settled in at the University of California San Diego for my internal medicine residency in 2008, because of its excellence (it has infectious diseases leaders in the following faculty members – Drs. Robert Schooley, Constance Benson, and Steffanie Strathdee), but also the opportunity to workin Tijuana.
“Tijuana? Isn’t that place a sh__hole, one of my classmates at Penn Med told me before I left.”
“Um… Well, certainly Tijuana has a lot of problems, the main one being the border fence and ways the US Government treats people from Mexico and Central America,” I thought angrily.
So I spent 2008-2011 working in the clinics, wards, and ICUs of UCSD but in my free time going down to Tijuana to collaborate with Dr. Jose Luis Burgos, a Mexican-American physician and UCSD faculty member on his care for the underserved, homeless people who live in the canals next to the border, and in the Zona Norte red light district. When I graduated in 2011 and moved to Mozambique, I held proud the award the chief residents had roasted me with- “Most likely to cross the border.” My nickname? “TJ Phil.”
But then it was time for Mozambique, Atlanta for CDC (and multiple trips to Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere), and Boston for ID fellowship.
I came back for a brief trip to San Diego in 2015 for a wedding, and another in 2017 for the ID Week conference, but that’s it. The border region that I loved, the canyons, the desert, the cactus, the ocean, was no longer my home.
Well, now we’re getting for another brief sojourn on the west coast. Our itinerary is on my website. In 8 days we plan to see family in LA; to head up to Monterrey to see Mars Gunja and Ja-Yun Cho and swim in the ocean, and then go to San Francisco and Point Reyes with Ben Sigelman, Maggie Gosselin, Susannah Graves, and Anna Levitt; to come back to San Diego and hopefully catch up with colleagues and friends; and go to Tijuana with my amigo Dr. Ben Hulley to see the Xolos play soccer. If you’re a long lost friend in California or Mexico and want to catch up a bit, please drop me a line.
Below, a video where I try to learn Miles Davis’s version of the song, Autumn Leaves. Thanks for reading my blog entry! If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to leave a reply or share with others. And remember, my website is always free.
Philip A. Lederer 
Love your constancy in serving the underserved. Safe and health travels to the left coast with your family.
thanks!
Thanks
On Thu, Feb 10, 2022 at 6:24 AM Health and Healing wrote:
> Philip Lederer MD posted: ” Eureka! We’re heading to Los Angeles on > Friday, February 18th for school vacation after a long Boston winter of > cold, and California Dreaming. I first went to California in 1996 for a > great trip with my parents and loved walking at Fort Funston, San Fran” >