Rights to Records

I first went to the eye clinic in Boston’s Joslin Center during the summer of 2010. The new course of treatment I had planned did not start well. Records I had sent in advance were missing; Doctor Deborah Schlossman met with me long enough to only make a future appointment to coordinate procedures on the dark-blind eye in coordination with another doctor and had sent me on my way without discussing the more immediate problem of my faltering left eye. I was not dissatisfied with that situation and let the desk know it. As far as IU was concerned, I had not been treated or examined for the problems I had gone there for, and I insisted on seeing a doctor who would actually treat me. They accommodated.
This took time. I ended up at the clinic for hours, mostly waiting in an examination room while doctors with their own caseloads had to accommodate for Deborah Schlossman’s rush to leave for the day at lunchtime.
The time alone in the room with the records Schlossman had created showed me that Schlossman’s misconduct exceeded ordinary laziness.
She had stated in those records that she had discussed the left eye with me, including a notation that she had told me not to lift anything heavy.
That detail could have sent me berserk. I had been told nothing of the sort, I had been trying to get back into my work, which often included physical exertion throughout the day. Such a note had been put in my record without it being discussed with me; I did not even know what her definition of "heavy" would be or what limits I should try to impose on myself.
The take away for the readers here is this: you have every right to access your own medical records. You should exercise this right and be aware of what your doctors are not telling you, as well as things they might add only in a way that might make it easy to forget among the course of a longer examination.
If the doctor or facilities deny you this right or want to impose additional hefty fees for this, you should start looking for other treatment. It will only get worse from there.