Loose ends

Now that Clinicals IV and V are underway, life often feels like a dizzying blur of clinicals, ride time and paid ambulance work. It has been an exciting week, but the start of Phase II of my field internship wasn't the only exciting thing going on. The chess, sports and publishing worlds all check in with notable occurrences too.

The U.S. Chess Championship concluded on Tuesday with the coronation of Gata Kamsky as the new national champion. Kamsky last won that title in 1991. Hikaru Nakamura, last year's champion, finished in a tie for third place overall. Interestingly, there has not been a repeat champion since Lev Alburt won back-to-back titles in 1984 and 1985.

Speaking of repeat championships, the Dartmouth baseball team defeated Columbia to clinch its second consecutive Ivy League championship. Last year's victim was Cornell, and I was fortunate enough to attend the clinching game. I wasn't so lucky this year, but a hearty congratulations to the Dartmouth baseball team all the same!

The Daily Dartmouth reported last week that Smith and Kraus Publishing has released its In An Hour series. This is a twenty-seven volume collection that provides a brief overview of major theatrical plays, including plot summary, author biography and historical context. The idea is for a theatergoer to pick up a copy of the corresponding In An Hour volume beforehand, thereby maximizing their understanding and enjoyment of the performance.

It's a neat concept in its own right, but I am primarily interested because I worked on this series while an editorial intern for Smith and Kraus in early 2008. My responsibility was primarily marketing, with a little conventional editing thrown in as well. As with Annette Gordon-Reed's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hemingses of Monticello, it is always exciting to see a book I worked on come out in print.

Megacodes over

I passed my Exit Megacodes this morning. It was a huge relief to finally get them out of the way. Each of us tested on one medical and one trauma scenario on Tuesday; as it turned out, no one passed both scenarios on the first try. Some people even failed both scenarios. I passed my medical but had to retest trauma. All the Tuesday retest slots were full, so I scheduled mine for this morning. The retest scenario was straightforward, and I passed with no problems. Now I am clear to begin Phase II of the field internship, where I function as the "in charge" paramedic.

Clinical IV started with a bang yesterday as I walked in the doors of the emergency department to find them working a cardiac arrest. I went in to observe the goings-on and was shortly put to work doing chest compressions. It was neat to see the full "code team" at work. Interestingly, while they have some equipment and drugs that we don't, by and large they're doing with eight people what I've been trained to do with two or three.

In other news, the U.S. Chess Championship is underway in St. Louis, Missouri. The four top seeds, Grandmasters Hikaru Nakamura, Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk and Yury Shulman, are tied for first place with 4.5 / 6. Round seven is being played right now.

Megacode Practice

We headed into the lab yesterday to begin practicing for our final "Assessment-Based Managment" scenarios, aka Exit Megacodes. This is the point in the program where they've taught us everything we need to know to function as entry-level paramedics. Now we have to prove we learned it by effectively managing two patients, one medical and one trauma, through everything the lab instructors throw at us. As it was put yesterday, "When you pass, that means you're ready to go out and take care of my mother."

From the world of baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies recently announced that fans running on the field would henceforth be corraled by stadium security instead of Philadelphia police officers, though police would remain available in case additional force were required. This change came about as a result of Monday night's episode in which a seventeen-year old boy came out onto the field and led police and stadium security on a chase through the outfield until one of the police officers Tased him.

The Phillies are of course free to do whatever they deem in the best interest of the players, coaches, umpires and fans. With that said, this move seems unnecessary. True, there was a public outcry against the use of a Taser on the young man, but I don't see the big deal. A man commited a crime, resisted arrest and then got Tased. Nothing unusual about that.

In other news, Iron Man 2 came out last night at midnight. Ellen and I have already made plans to go see it when I visit New Hampshire later this month. I cannot wait to see the movie and I especially cannot wait to see my beautiful fiancee.

May is underway

Ellen came out to visit this weekend, and it was wonderful to see her. The weather certainly cooperated; thunderstorms were predicted for most of the weekend but consistently held off, which meant we got to enjoy warm temperatures and delightful zephyrs. The weekend ended much too quickly, as it always does when Ellen is here, but it's less than a month until our next visit and we will both be plenty busy until then.

My paramedic instructor mentioned as we were leaving on Thursday that we will spend part of tomorrow filling out graduation paperwork. It was startling to hear the "G" word at first, but I realized that my surprise stemmed from how early it popped up, relatively speaking. The didactic component may be winding down, but there is a lot of program left. During our sixty one day clinical break, on average six out of every twenty four hours will be spent at a clinical.

On the health front, Johnson & Johnson subsidiary McNeil Consumer Healthcare issued a recall Saturday for specified lots of Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl. Evidently there was a manufacturing mistake that led to the inclusion of excessive levels of the active ingredients. For more information, visit the recall's official recall website.

In other news, the Yankees' starting rotation is 12-1 this year, with the exception of Javier Vazquez, who is 1-3 on the season. Can't they just start Sabathia twice and send Vazquez back to Atlanta?