The "giving fake good news to the dying person" thing was a plot line in the comic strip "Funky Winkerbean". Lisa Moore, the wife of long-time strip character "Les Moore", the high-school bullying victim turned teacher and published novelist-who had suffered from breast cancer for years in the strip, was told by her oncologist that the tests showed her cancer-free, ONLY to be called back in a couple of weeks later to hear that the oncologist had been given someone else's test results by mistake and Lisa was actually a terminal case.