It was a hard mission for me…
I had 2 objectives to accomplished and hope to complete them in 1 shot…
The first objective was to attend the exam of Health Information Manager certification exam. The exam was organized by the Medical Informatics Society. The exam was fixed on the mid of the November. I had an advantage for the exam – 20 % of the examination was about medical term and another 20% about medical ethic and health insurance. I thought I need something to justify my position as a programmer in the hospital – I am not a computer science/engineering grad , really inappropriate for me to such job...
On the same day the internal medicine society(SIM) was having it’s annual conference. I am still 2 credits short from my practicing license renewal. This 2 credits was specific credits that means only I needed to attend specific courses to get them – the sex and infection control credits. The sex credits was required as too many of sexual harassment occurred in the medical field recent few years. The infection control credits was required due to the avian influenza and SARS outbreak. The SIM annual conference had organized such course during the 2 days conference.
The challenge – the courses was held during the morning session. The sex issue in the morning(8:30am) and the infection control in the afternoon(3:30pm) in the National Taiwan University Hospital.(NTUH) The HIM exam was set at 2pm at the other end of Taipei City(Taipei Medical University). I made a call to the SIM and the SIM had claimed that they are not very strict about the entrée and exit time for the courses(we need to sign in and out during the course to make sure we actually sit in the classroom…). So I decided to rush and see if I could get the attend the examination and still collect the 2 credits. I came out with the 1 arrow 2 hawks plan…
I took the 1st high speed train up north – it was the biggest Build-Operation-Transfer plan of Taiwan and the dream of 1 days traveling for North and South came true. The 6:36am train would arrived in Taipei by 8:15pm. The 1st course started by 8:30am. The Taipei main station is a joined station of train , HSR rain, LRT. The NTU is LRT station away from the Taipei main station. I arrived at the station on time and hopped onto the train. I did some reading and the was shocked as I heard the train announcement. I was on the wrong train – the announcement said it would be stopping at all station and would arrived in Taipei by 8:30am… Definitely no my train. I jumped off the train and found that my train was actually at the other dock. I ran up the stairs and cross to the other dock and managed to get on the proper train 2 mins before it departed. Not a good start definitely and “I had a bad feeling about it”…
I slept during the journey and the train arrived on time. I found the LRT dock and get on the LRT and arrived at NTUH by 8:25am. I went to the registration and went to the class room at level 5. The next 2 hours was not that boring as I imagined. When I went off by 10:30am. I found that we did not need to sign out…good news. I could go back earlier. I collected some free gift – a VISA electron card from a local bank, a blood sugar machine(free of coz….)…I took the LRT again to the closest station near National Taipei University. I took a bus instead of a cab. Lots of time for me to spare.
I had lunch at one of the shop outside the university – there are always lots of restaurant/food stalls outside a university…. I had an hour to go through everything again…
A 50 questions MCQ paper. I did a count before I passed up my papers – 70+ .. The passmark was 70 and I think I could do it.. at 30mins, I handed out the paper and rushed back to NTUH… I managed to get to NTUH by 3:40pm and signed in.. I left the NTUH by 4:10pm and got to the HSR station by 4:20 pm. There was a long queue in front of the automated ticket selling machine and even a longer queue in front of the ticketing counter. I quickly glanced through the train timetable and I thought I should take the 4:45 train. There were 3 machines in front of the queue. A female worker was standing around it and trying to help out those with difficulty of operating the machines. There was this man in proper suit(coat with ties) who tried to buy a ticket with credit card and kept having error and retrying. He had however turned down the offer when the lady tried to help him…He had stand there for almost 10 mins and finally gave up…I observed the buying process and found that the credit card route took the longest time. I decided to use the ATM card instead but then I would lost the credit card insurance coverage – but what the hack ,time is gold ( I need to go back and look after my 2 kiddo)… I managed to get my ticket by 7 mins before the train departed.
The course was smooth – I got home in time…
I accomplished all my objectives….I got the 2 credits and I passed my examination(got my cert last week…)
Well what a day…next year I need to go for the analysist examination....
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