Winding down (is a relative term)

Monday is our last day in the classroom at school. Tuesday is an off day and then we head into the lab on Thursday for Advanced Cardiac Life Support and exit megacode practice. The home stretch of the didactic portion of the program has been beyond hectic; this morning's infectious disease exam was our seventh test in nine days. As glad as I was to be back in the classroom after the lab-heavy ITLS module, I'm looking forward to the change of scenery next week.

On the clinical front, I am moving through my pediatric rotations in rapid fashion. I spent Friday and Saturday of last week in the Labor & Delivery ward at the Children's Hospital of Buffalo. Saturday's shift was a bit slow, with the most interesting cases coming in just as I was on my way out the door, but I got to see three deliveries on Friday. My classmates had reported being allowed varying levels of participation in the deliveries, so I was not sure what to expect. As it turned out, the staff was friendly but in no hurry to cede great amounts of responsibility, so my contributions were primarily limited to assisting with equipment.

Last night was my first shift in the Emergency Department at CHOB. I spent the first four hours up front in triage and the latter half in the surgical section of the ED. The time spent in triage flew by, since I got to interact almost nonstop with patients sporting a variety of complaints. Shadowing the nurse assigned to the surgical rooms was slightly slower, since there was not the same volume of cases, but I did get to see a couple neat procedures. I will be back at the pediatric ED next Saturday and Sunday to wrap up Clinical III.

In other news, the World Chess Championship is underway in Sofia, Bulgaria. After four games, current titleholder Viswanathan Anand leads challenger Veselin Topalov by a score of 2.5 - 1.5. If the start to the match is any indication, the remaining eight games promise exciting and combative chess!

Back in Buffalo

Spring break is over, and it's back to work in earnest. There are only sixteen class days remaining in the program, although the field internship and clinicals will ramp up to fill the void. All that's left before the start of clinical break is to wrap up Medical Emergencies I, take our Advanced Cardiac Life Support exams and then pass Exit Megacodes. This is no small task, but the light at the end of the tunnel is slowly coming into view.

On the chess side of things, I have only been able to play in one tournament in 2010. I'm planning my "grand comeback" for the Mayor's Cup, a six-round, FIDE-rated event held the first weekend in June. This tournament is the crown jewel of the Buffalo chess calendar, and I expect it to draw an extremely competitive field. The paramedic program's clinical break begins two weeks prior to the event; hopefully this will give me some time to spend studying and preparing for the tournament.

As many exciting things as are on the horizon here, I'm nostalgic for spring break already. Not only was the pace of living more agreeable (I have seventy to eighty hour weeks here at least for the next month, possibly longer), but I got to see Ellen on a daily basis. That is without a doubt what I miss most; phone calls and Skype just aren't the same.

In other news, the "I can't believe they got a grant to study that" files have yielded another gem. Evidently, your marriage can impact your health, either positively or negatively. Where would we be without these studies?

Visibility and sponsorship

The U.S. Chess Federation announced yesterday the first of four wildcard entrants into the 2010 U.S. Championships. Twenty of twenty four slots are filled by players who qualified either by winning designated tournaments or by virtue of their high rating; the other four slots go to players deemed deserving of a chance to participate. The first such player was none other than radio personality Howard Stern.

The USCF message boards were aflame with debate over the appropriateness of the choice. Detractors argued that inviting an unaccomplished player like Stern, whose rating of 1620 is more than a thousand points too low for him to qualify by merit, would cheapen participation in the event. Supporters pointed out that Stern's participation would bring more publicity to the event than any advertising campaign ever could.

The announcement turned out to be an April Fool's joke (though Stern does play tournament chess), but it's actually not such a bad idea. Inviting a player with the celebrity and public following that Stern possesses would do wonders for returning chess to the public consciousness. This is, I believe, a necessary precondition for securing long-term corporate sponsorship. American chess in the post-Fischer era suffers on two fronts: Lack of visibility and lack of sponsorship. Sustained growth is impossible until these conditions are remedied. With any luck, this year's joke will be next year's reality.