Wide Margins
My wife and I dread parking in a local hospital garage. It feels like a death trap. There’s no margins for error. The hairpin turns in that mountaintop park feel positively spacious compared to these turns. If you’re disabled (remember, we’re talking about a hospital, here), be very careful.
Wide margins allow for errors, for change, for sudden stops, for being human. We need them in every area of our lives. Space and margins allow for the unexpected. It assumes humans will get it wrong.
I think health system designers are among the worst in designing for human error. A while back, when I was with a family member at a different healthcare garage, the spaces were so narrow and a one-way section was poorly marked with a space sandwiched into a tiny area. I inadvertently bumped into a vehicle I didn’t notice in that sandwiched space. Fortunately, I didn’t do any damage to the vehicle. But, a gentleman who was working in the area called the owner. I don’t know why they designed this area like this, she said. This is my assigned spot. I got hit in the same place less than two weeks ago. They did damage my car. I can’t understand why they even have a spot here?
Our culture is designed to invest the least energy possible in protecting people, animals, or the Earth (mentally, spiritually, and physically). In Texas, where I live, the state is famously pro-business, limiting safety regulations and the damages that businesses have to pay when they harm people. Following the troubling death of former US Representative Eddie Berniece Johnson in a Dallas medical facility, her family settled in lieu given that Texas has such low malpractice caps (see there and here). She, herself, was a nurse.
Even in our personal lives, we should arrange our lives - and our temperaments - to give space for the errors of others.
We all slip into failure mode from time to time. In our judgment, in our planning, in our behaviors towards others. We should, in our cancel culture remember to be less quick to cancel lest the person we cancel be ourselves. It’s actually wise to expect we will cancel ourselves, at some point, in some blindingly obvious manner.