Breaking the health care provider-patient confidentiality agreement in AMCAS essay

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dmitrinyr

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I used to work as an EMT and in my personal statement for AMCAS, I mention patients by their name and entail how caring for them made me lean more towards becoming a doctor one day. In the essay I say the patient's name and talk of their condition. Is this breaking any laws or ethical or moral issues? I was thinking if this is wrong, that I can just talk about the patients that I treated and how they effected me without telling their names. I just thought that by naming them, it points out in some way that these people were so memorable that I remembered their names out of all of my patients.

I feel that the stories of these patients are very important to the flow and the plot of my essay and excluding them is not an option.

I would appreciate any imput I receive from my fellow SDNrs.

Thanks and good luck to all.
 
I did the exact same thing about the patients on my rescue when I wrote about them last year. It's done all the time and is nothing to worry about.
 
This is a no-brainer. I want to be kind, but even asking the question shows that you are completely out of touch.

Don't use patient's names without their permssion.

Ever.

Ok, there are certain exceptions. These have to do, mostly, with mandatory reporting of abuse, etc. Looking yourself look good is not one of these exception.
 
I said "a woman dying of lymphoma ..." and also "a homeless man who was ..." to describe my two stories of people I wanted to write about. There were so many great people, but I feel woman/man young/elderly etc., is about as far as I would go. No names, remember the HIPPA stuff dude ! It's very serious now.
 
Thanks a lot guys for your honesty. I just rewrote my essay and left out the names. I don't know what I was thinking when I put in their names but I didn't have any malicious thoughts or anything of that nature. I guess I just wasn't thinking.

Later.
 
Oh, wow. I thought that my boss was freaking out lately about HIPPO's.

Jeez, that makes a lot more sense.

To the OP: I hope the strong response you got here wasn't too intimidating. It is far better to hear this now, than to have your interviewer clear their throat and say "I just have one question about your essay..."
 
I had the same dilemna... I used a pseudonym (and made that clear in the essay) because it seemed impersonal to just say "a woman who xxxx".
 
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