NHS IT mess hits everyone

Oh yes, I've had first hand experience with NHS IT system. I never did write any follow up on my broken wrist saga, but I'm so glad that the debacle that is the new NHS IT system has been brought up by BBC. Read the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7477099.stm

Please don't get me wrong. I have only praises for the very competent doctors & caring nurses on the NHS Trust hospitals, both the Royal London and Mile End Hospital. It is the utter lack of competence of the admin staff that or the IT system that I despise.

I can go on for a whole day listing my grief about the NHS admin/IT system but I think BBC has sum it pretty well. To cut long story short, I was sent to the wrong department twice (out of 4 appointments), system down for days when I urgently needed an appointment with no back up system (you'd thought for a hospital you have a backup for such an important system), not entered to the system properly, appointments not booked properly and gosh the list goes on. My local GP has been very helpful, but even she is powerless against this administration tragedy (ie: she can't get me an appointment to the correct department without going through the system).

It is indeed a debacle of astronomical proportion. To save life, I think NHS should go back to paper & pen system.

Anyway enough ranting for now. Let's just hope someone can fix this mess soon. I wasn't being serious about the pen & paper system. And I do agree that the NHS needs to have a top class IT system. It's the implementation that is a mess, this can't last for much longer.

CFA ... bah ...

I bombed out CFA exam level 1 earlier this morning. Result won't be out for a while yet, but I doubt that I will see "Pass" on the that day. If, and I would say this is a minuscule probability, somehow I miraculously pass this exam there will be huge party with beer flowing on my tap. That's a promise.

I did reasonably well on the first part of the exam. Using my own intuition on exam result (I'm quite good at this, usually spot on during high school/uni days), I should get around 75% ish. It was the second exam that got it. I reckon I would be extremely lucky to score 60%.

What went wrong? And how did I manage to throw the past 4 months of studying down the drain?

On the long train ride to Baker St. from the Excel centre I thought about this. Basically it can be narrowed down to 2 simple factors:

1. I underestimated the amount of materials.
2. I severely overestimated my motivation and ability to study.

All those unanswered questions on exam are covered in the assigned readings, there's not a lot of derivation required but you do need to understand the materials. I simply could not recall them. I lost count how many times I said "Darn ... I wished I had reviewed this last night".

So where to now? It would seem to be a waste to throw away that study. Would I do it again this December? I don't know yet. I'm not sure if I have the motivation to do this again, although if I do, I would know how to study this time.

Suggestions to those studying for CFA Lv 1:

Study more ... earlier.

It is not a hard exam, but the amount of materials to be read can kill a person ... literally (those assigned reading books weigh a ton).

A consolation, straight after the exam I went to the new Wembley Stadium to see Foo Fighters. Those guys are amazing life and on recording studio. It was the best show I've seen so far. Nothing like it, great show, great atmosphere and great crowd. 86,000 people all came to see just 1 band. I had a bit of reservation earlier on a stadium concert, but they did such a great job. It's also great to see a band on their prime on a huge concert.

What a way to end this first half of 2008 :)