Gary Lynch's Blog @ www.garyLynch.net

I've written before about the other Gary Lynch's that are out there but today my path crossed with one of them in a most unexpected way.

I had a dental appointment for a filling as a consequence of a checkup I had a couple of weeks ago. The dentist, the same lady who saw me just a couple of weeks ago, called me into the surgery and sat me down in the chair. She proceeded to get out all the tools of her trade that she'd need to do me with and started asking a few questions. You have to pay close attention to what she says as she's an Eastern European lady who's English isn't perfect but it was very apparent that it wasn't a filling she was expecting to do to me! I said to her "I'm in for a filling." "No you're not." she replied. "Yes I am" I said, pulling out of my pocket the form she'd completed on my last visit showing the treatment I'd need.

She handed the form to her nurse/interpreter who looked at it a bit confused then looked at the computer then back to the form, then back to the computer. After a few moments of head scratching and key bashing it became apparent they had another Gary Lynch with a very similar date of birth as a patient and his records had been put against my name and vice versa. So anyway, she had to pack up all her tools, get a different set out and she did finally give me the filling I needed.

After my treatment was over I went to see the receptionist to book my next appointment, "Oh, how unusual" she said, "we have two Gary Lynch's on the system." "Yes. I know" I replied.

This isn't actually the first time this has happened to me. A number of years ago I had a phone call from the hospital booking an appointment to have a brain scan. At the time I had been suffering from a lot of headaches and I couldn't quite understand how the hospital knew about this but after a few minutes of confused conversation it became apparent it wasn't my head they wanted to scan.