“You’re supposed to be dead!” the professor stammered.
“I know. I heard. Sorry to disappoint!”
During our recent road trip, my husband recalled how an error in paperwork resulted in the release of a false announcement of his death at the college he was attending. Consequently, on the first day of Spring classes everyone in the classroom stared at him like he was a ghost. For a few days, he had no registration, no funding, and all his college professors were notified with a letter that offered counseling services for anyone affected by the tragic loss.
And curiously, this sort of thing is not an isolated incident.
During World War II, sometimes a soldier’s belongings were sent back to family with a note that they were killed in action, and then they would show up after surviving alone in the wild. Imagine the shock!
And it happens in healthcare all the time. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to reverse a death or discharge?
Sometimes we get it wrong, sometimes we are surprised, sometimes we assume too much, but the computer cannot seem to accept these types of errors.
This leads me to a question. Why is it that we don’t expect this type of error? Why do we “feel” like it is highly unusual?
In truth, we have a lot of anticipation for an ending – to the point that it’s difficult to imagine it could be false.
By Gayle Porter
