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I'm a 2009 graduate of Dartmouth College who loves Jesus, my wife and all things Northeast.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Kamsky repeats!

Grandmaster Gata Kamsky clinched his second consecutive U.S. Chess Championship title yesterday with a 1.5-0.5 victory over Yury Shulman in the finals. Kamsky is now a three-time winner, with his first title coming in 1991. The last player to win back-to-back titles was Lev Alburt in 1984-1985. The women's championship has gone to tiebreaks and will be decided today; by this time tomorrow either Tatev Abrahamyan or Anna Zatonskih will be newly coronated. Last year's champion, Irina Krush, finished in third place.

Two of my former colleagues were recently highlighted for unveiling their culminating engineering project, a combination blood pressure / atrial fibrillation monitoring system. Adam Strom '10 and Jeff Spielberg '10, good friends with whom I served for multiple years on the Dartmouth EMS officer board, completed this project while finishing their BE degrees this winter. The first patient for the device was none other than Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim. This is an exciting achievement that has great potential. Way to go, guys!

Speaking of Dartmouth EMS, they organized the second annual Northern New England Collegiate EMS Conference this past Saturday at Dartmouth College. Comprised of a series of training sessions and two mass-casualty incident drills, the event was attended by squads from Tufts, Mt. Holyoke, the University of Vermont, the University of Massachusetts--Lowell, Amherst, Colby and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, along with host Dartmouth. I had the privilege to participate in the event, first as a drill evaluator and later as an actor in one of the simulations. It was an impressive undertaking, and I take my hat off to them for pulling it off in fine style.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Pain (not Thomas)

The government announced yesterday that it will seek to strengthen oversight of the prescription of certain narcotic painkillers. There is concern that patients are illegitimately obtaining and then abusing such medications as OxyContin, fentanyl and Dilaudid. Under the new proposal, physicians would be required to undergo training before being permitted to prescribe these medications. The hope would be that doctors could better identify "drug seekers" and reserve narcotics for patients that actually need them.

Whether or not this proposal will be implemented is unclear, as it would likely require Congressional action before taking effect. Also uncertain is whether or not this would even be a good idea. Drug seekers (people who fake or exaggerate pain to receive strong analgesics that they then use recreationally or sell) have been around as long as pain medication itself, and while it's certainly a dangerous practice that should be curtailed, there are risks inherent in doing so.

Not the least of these is the potential for "false negatives," patients who are in legitimate pain but are denied pain medicine for fear they're faking it. I read an interesting article a little while ago (which I'm unfortunately unable to locate at the moment) in which a physician discussed the relative merit of combating drug seeking versus the elevated risk of denying patients the medicine they need. That particular physician believed that nothing justified withholding needed treatment from a patient, and if the cost of avoiding that was rules lax enough to avoid false negatives but which also allow more drug seekers to achieve their ends, then so be it.

That's not to say that the new proposal would necessarily have this effect. Indeed, if the training were effective, physicians might be better able to identify those patients who are truly in pain (reducing false negatives) while also better weeding out those patients who are simply looking for narcotics (thereby also reducing false positives). Certainly it's a complex issue, and one I'll be interested to watch as it progresses along the often-glacial path to implementation.

First thunderstorm

To paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Spring ... limps along, but it gets here all the same." With the first thunderstorm of the season this morning, I'm beginning to think winter might actually end this year. Saturday's snow flurries were a big of a downer, but the appearance of the first buds on the trees yesterday more than made up for that. It's not that I don't like winter, but ... enough already!

The U.S. Chess Championships are in full swing; youth is carrying the day so far. Surprise leaders include college students Robert Hess and Sam Shankland (technically speaking, Hess has not yet started at Yale, where he will be a freshman in the fall). Veteran participants--and past champions--Alexander Onischuk and Gata Kamsky are also at the top of the crosstable. The women's field is starting to clarify as well, with Sabina Foisor finally faltering as pre-tournament favorites Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih make up ground.

Unfortunately, my fantasy chess team is shaping up to be a basement-dweller this year. Some players are perennially high scorers, but my "dark-horse" picks have had rotten performances so far. I'm hoping for a second-half turnaround, but I have a sinking feeling that my fantasy chess team is going the way of my NCAA March Madness bracket. It's a good thing I don't gamble.

In other news, the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this week; recipients included Joseph Rago '05 for his editorial contributions to The Wall Street Journal. Congratulations to all the winners!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

U.S. Championships underway

The U.S. Chess Championships began yesterday in St. Louis. There are sixteen players in the men's tournament and eight in the women's; last year's women's champion Irina Krush declined her automatic invitation to the men's tournament and chose instead to defend her title. Unfortunately for her, she was upset in the first round by Sabina Foisor, but there's a lot of chess still to play and anything can happen. On the men's side, most of the first-round games were drawn, with only Grandmasters Ben Finegold and Alexander Shabalov falling, to GM Alexander Onischuk and GM Larry Christiansen, respectively.

Closer to home, the New Hampshire Quick Chess Championship was contested earlier in the month, but I was unfortunately unable to attend. I would have liked to play, but the tournament just didn't fit into my schedule. I did get to play in the Vermont Resort Open in Fairlee, VT last month, and even though I suffered a last-round defeat at the hands of FIDE Master Nelson Castaneda which dropped me out of the prize money, I still had a great time. Hopefully I'll play in another tournament soon!

The NBA playoffs begin today, although I have a feeling my interest will soon wane once the Knicks are annihilated by the Celtics. I know that Sun Tzu would disapprove of my attitude, and I also know that the Knicks have shown flashes of brilliance this season during which they can beat any team, but I fear their inconsistency will match up poorly against the Celtics' experience. Though that experience (read, age) will catch up to them as they, in turn, fall to a surprisingly talented Bulls team. And despite the preponderance of individual stars in the East, I'm predicting another Western Conference NBA champion this year. There, I said it.

In other news, the Internet has been ablaze with the story of Kevin Na, the PGA golfer who required sixteen strokes to finish a par-4 hole on Thursday. You have to admire the man's persistence, though. I usually call it quits on a mini-golf hole after eight shots.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Opening day

Opening Day is one of my favorite days of the year. At long last, baseball is back. And even though it was cold and snowy across the Northeast this year, nothing can diminish my enthusiasm for the return of the national pastime. One week into the season, I'm generally pleased with the way things are going. Other than Monday night's irregularity, the Yankees' bullpen has performed as advertised, and their lineup seems to be largely avoiding the prolonged start-of-season thaw they've endured the past few years. It comes as a pleasant surprise, too, that perennial foes Tampa Bay and Boston have started the season a combined 0-11. 162 games is a long time, and anything is possible, but I'll take what I can get. (I am less pleased by Texas's red-hot start ... they don't seem to be missing a beat despite losing Cliff Lee to free agency.)

I was reading the story of the pilot who made an emergency landing on a beach in Queens earlier this week. Fortunately, no one was injured and it doesn't seem like there was any significant property damage. Still, it was a bizarre episode. One of the many questions running through my mind after reading the account of the pilot's conversation with the air traffic controller: How does enrolling in medical school make you a paramedic?

As best I can tell, the looming government shutdown (with the deluge of media coverage this possibility has received recently, I'm beginning to think it should be all one word) is not going to directly affect ambulance operations in New Hampshire. Medicare will continue making payments, at least for a time, drawn on money set aside previously. Should a prolonged shutdown occur, who knows how that might affect ambulance services? Not I.

In other news, the University of Connecticut and Texas A&M won the NCAA men's and women's basketball championship, respectively, this past week. Congratulations to them both.