Re: Medical records

Tim <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Am in the process of asking to see my psychiatric records.Have filled in
request form and just need someone to witness that i am who i say i am.
I'm doing it for two reasons.The first and the minor one being that i can.
The second being that i am curious as to just what they think is
actually the matter with me.
This curiosity having been piqued by the changes of dx i have had over
the years from schizophrenia to bipolar and more recently personality
disorder.
I have asked re the PD several times and have been given very vague and
generalised answers which has left me feeling unsatisfied.

No surprise. I've had dealings with (IIRC) six consultant shrinks, and
only one (sure!) of them was willing to answer any of my questions or
indeed speak to me as if I were a human being.

You might find that you have to ask a solicitor to get involved to be
permitted access to your *FULL* records. They don't like giving them
out - I've had several point blank refusals to permit me access to my
notes, and one time it took a solicitor to get 'em at all.

[snip]

Has anyone else here ever requested to see their psychiatric record? How
much did you get to see ie was it for part of the duration of your
psychiatric care or the whole
Kaboodle from when you first came under psychiatric services to the
present day?

You only get the records held in each place you ask to get the records
from - and you can expect them to have gone through the records page by
page and to have removed anything they think you shouldn't see (which
includes anything they think might be used by you to complain about
them. I have been told my medical professionals that this is perfectly
reasonable behaviour even though the only permissible reason to deny you
access to any part of your medical records is for the good of your
health - no other considerations are legal).

In my case, that included things like false complaints that had been
made against me (I could never get anyone to address my complaints about
that: they just denied that there was anything in my notes that
complained about me, but I'd seen in one day - in my notes, signed and
dated), as well as about half the notes generally. They decided that it
was bad for my health, you see.

So many questions in my head for which i need fuller answers than i am
currently getting.

Don't expect your notes to help much. You'll probably be incredibly,
outrageously, offendedly angry at what you read. Be warned.

Rowland.

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