When We Forget to Remember: Failures in Prospective Memory Range from Annoying to Lethal

“A surgical team closes an abdominal incision, successfully completing a difficult operation. Weeks later, the patient comes into the ER complaining of abdominal pain and an X-ray reveals that one of the forceps used in the operation was left inside the patient. Why would highly skilled professionals forget to perform a simple task they have executed without difficulty thousands of times before?”