Episode 34- Robots, Paper Charts, And One Very Long Day.

A cyber event doesn’t feel “digital” when you’re the one on the gurney. We’re joined by Jack, who shares his story anonymously after being impacted as a patient during a hospital cyber incident while being treated for prostate cancer. He takes us from pre-surgery nerves to the uncomfortable reality of not fully knowing what’s happening once you’re under anesthesia and relying on a care team, technology, and processes you can’t see. We talk about robotic-assisted surgery and why connected medical devices can raise new questions in the patient’s mind, even when the clinical goal is the safest, most effective approach. Jack describes waking up to an unexpected timeline, hearing bits and pieces about “something” going wrong, and then dealing with a major post-op life change: learning to live with a temporary colostomy bag. It’s an unfiltered reminder that ransomware in healthcare, EHR downtime, and operational disruption can ripple into real patient outcomes, comfort, and trust. We also dig into what he noticed on the hospital floor when systems went down, including the shift to paper charting and how staff handled conversation around the disruption. Along the way, we wrestle with a tough question for healthcare leaders, administrators, and cybersecurity teams: how transparent should hospitals be with patients during and after a cyberattack, and what does “enough information” look like when care must continue? If you care about patient safety, healthcare cybersecurity, and the human side of incident response, listen and share this story with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe to Cyber Survivor, leave a review, and tell us your take: what would you want your hospital to communicate if systems failed?