Beyond Your Six Words: “That’s an X-ray of a dog.”
In 2006, Deborah Horn joined UT Southwestern’s Information Resources Department to train clinicians on software – specifically Epic, which UTSW had recently acquired for keeping electronic medical records. Ms. Horn was enlisted to lead training of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery – and had successfully done so for several weeks – often training physicians with one-on-one sessions to ensure all of their questions and concerns were addressed.
In one particular session, Ms. Horn was training the new head of Orthopaedics. She set up the classroom just as she had for her previous classes, using a presentation projected on a large screen; the title page showed an X-ray on a light box with a stethoscope lying nearby.
“The physician came into the room, looked around, and asked where the rest of the class was,” Ms. Horn said. “I explained this was a one-on-one class. He sat down in the first row and looked at the image projected on the big screen.
“He turned his head this way and that, so I asked if something was wrong.
He said, ‘Yes, that’s an X-ray of a dog.’”
Ms. Horn was stunned and not sure what to say. She had trained many physicians from the Orthopeadics Department – and none of them had mentioned the dog X-ray.
Finally, she said to the physician: “Well, that makes sense, I love dogs.”
The whole story: Ms. Horn had inherited the training handout and presentation from another Epic trainer.
“I didn’t realize the image on the title page showed an X-ray of a dog,” she said. “It traumatized me, because I was new to UT Southwestern, and it being a one-on-one training made me especially nervous.”
And she really does love dogs – so much that, in May 2014, she founded a nonprofit organization, Helping Seniors Keep Pets. The organization assists low-income senior-citizen pet owners who can’t drive to get pet food, bring their pets to veterinarian appointments, or walk them regularly – or who have been unexpectedly hospitalized and need someone to temporarily care for their pets.
“I’m a big-time dog person,” she said. “I’ve always had multiple rescue dogs.”
In May 2017, Ms. Horn and the nonprofit’s co-founder, A.M. Crawford, were featured on the cover of the Senior Living insert of the Dallas Morning News, with her dogs Chester, a cocker spaniel, and Addison, a three-legged beagle (her second cocker spaniel – Ditto – wouldn’t leave the photographer alone and missed the photo opp).
Ms. Horn, who is looking forward to retirement, will soon be able to dedicate more of her time to Helping Seniors Keep Pets.
“They say if you can keep your nonprofit alive after three years, you’re good for a while,” she said. “It really comes down to donations and volunteers, and we keep getting more of both each year.”
