Medical Did I just destroy my chances with a HIPAA violation?

[TheBoneDoctah]

In my primary app work and activities section, one of my volunteering activities was acting as a visitor and semi-caretaker for a patient with MS (reading to her, feeding her, helping her write emails and use the computer). I put her real name in the title of the activity - think "Caretaker for Jane Doe". At the time, I thought it was ok because I got this opportunity through a newsletter from my pre-health office. The description for the activity in the newsletter was literally "Jane Doe is a MS patient who has been helped by students since 2005". I thought since the name was out in the public it would be ok to put in my app. I never signed any paperwork, took any financial compensation, and an application reviewing service that I used never made any comments to the title or use of the name so I thought I would be okay.

If there is a problem, is there any way to get the AAMC to redact this? How else should I try to solve this or should I just withdraw and give up at this point?

Even if it wasn't a HIPAA violation I wouldn't have used her real name as that isn't important in your activity.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[tantacles]

I understand that this was an incredibly stupid and dumb action on my part. I just want to know if medical schools will instantly drop my application because of this and if so, I want to know the possibility of being thrown on some kind of blacklist

I think it's unlikely they will notice. They are extremely unlikely to google the name of the person you took care of, and are likely to assume you used a pseudonym. I would not bring this up at any interviews, and I would just learn from this in the future.

 

[tantacles]

Yeah, I'm just scared because the name is both a first and last name, not a single first name.

It's too late. I just wouldn't mention it in interviews. It also sounds like you were not providing health care, so legally I don't think there's any issue. You were just a person who helped another person. I wouldn't stress excessively over this.

 

[Goro]

What's done is done and worrying isn't going to help. Keep your eyes on the prize!