Medical Records Protection 保护病例资料

In the much publicized Murdoch bugging scandals, one thing was perhaps quite lost to Chinese people
was the significance of the story reported by ABC News: "The Sun [one of the newspapers owned by Murdoch family] went much further when it allegedly stole Brown's family's medical records."

In the U.S., when a person takes medical leave, he or she even does not need to tell supervisor what troubles him or her, while in China, illnesses are openly discussed and commented upon and there is hardly any concern for privacy, not just amongst families and friends, colleagues are usually informed of every details of the ailments.

This is not to say that an illness is automatically concealed in the U.S.  People often choose to share certain information to let their immediate colleagues to understand their issues but usually it was expected, implicitly or explicitly, that the information should be kept confidential and it would up to the patient to choose what they want to disclose and to whom.  Medical records are very personal and private as well.

Therefore the Sun's behavior so unacceptable in the west and rather not an issue in China.

在廣為谈论的默多克竊聽醜聞中，有一个故事的意義也許令中國人很不解。

美國廣播公司新聞報導：“太陽報 [默多克家族擁有的報紙之一] 走得更遠時，涉嫌偷了布朗的家庭的醫療記錄。”

在美國，當一個人需要请病假，他或她甚至不需要訴上司煩惱他或她的是什麼，而在中國，人们公開討論和評論疾病，幾乎沒有对隱私的尊重，而这不僅僅限于家人和朋友，同事通常也会被告知疾病的每一個細節。

這並不是說，在美國病人會自動隱瞒疾病，人们往往會選擇某些信息，讓他們同事了解他們的問題。但或明或暗，這些信息應予以保密，並由病人來選擇他們想要的什么透露給誰。病歷也是非常個人的资料。

因此，太陽報的行為，在西方是不能接受的，而在中國则不是一個問題。