Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury said Tuesday it would soon notify patients whose privacy was invaded when a teacher at nearby Naugatuck Valley Community College showed radiology technician students their x-rays and names.
Hospital spokesman Joe Connolly said he expected that the hospital would have to notify about 50 people. But he said the investigation is continuing.
“We acknowledge it was inappropriate,” Connolly said adding it was not as serious as what a former student had claimed.
Connolly said the disclosure of the names with the x-rays was “inadvertant” and insisted that ages, street addresses, doctor notes were not available to the students. The practice was stopped in January, he said.
He also insisted that the privacy problem just took place during the fall semester last year.
However, Jose Pinto of Waterbury, the former student who blew the whistle on the college and the hospital, told CtWatchdog Tuesday that about 100 patients were identified during the three months he studied at the college.
Pinto, who after flunking out of the program disclosed the problem to the federal Department of Health & Human Services Boston office and to CtWatchdog, said he had no question that full identification was given to him and the 20 others in the class.
Pinto said the instructor – Tony Santos, who is also a part-time medical technician at the hospital – would project on the classroom screen grids containing about 20 names at a time. The grids included x-rays, patient names, hospital room numbers, dates of birth, as well as information about the xray.
The instructor, he said, normally used patients whose x-rays had recently been taken. From the grids, Pinto said, the instructor would select a handful of x-rays which were then discussed and at times included notes made by the family physician. CAT scans and MRIs were also shown to students, he said.
“Gone on For Years”
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First of all there is no program for radiology technicians at NVCC. I dont know if such a title even exists. The program is for becoming a Radiologic Technologists. So straight of the ball this is poor journalism because the facts are inaccurate. Secondly, taking the word of a disgruntled former student without researching his claims is unconscionable. I highly doubt the vast majority of these claims. Its much more likely that the true events that transpired adhered to patient confidentiality as much as reasonably achievable while providing xrays as learning tools for students to view. I will be writing to CTwatchdog to complain about this clown to dares to publish such a biased and poorly researched article!
I am also a graduate from the program. Yes it is true that they had complete access to the records and films from Saint Mary’s hospital. Yes we used them for educational purposes but I do believe it is a hippa violation.
I am a graduate of NVCC and am currently employed as a CT Scan Technologist. First off these claims are inaccurate. In my time as a student I had never seen a hippa violation in Tony Santos’ class. Tony was my mentor, he is the only reason I pursued a job in CT Scan. He is an educator and St. Mary’s hospital is a teaching hospital. Patients understand that their images are used as teaching tools when they come to a hospital that has education programs. How else would students learn to evaluate films without the ability to critique the work performed during their clinical rotations. If it weren’t for Tony Santos I would not be educated in critiquing films or understanding the anatomy of patients in an xray. I am appalled at this students claim. I will say one last thing, this program is the most respected program in CT and you will not pass if you do not do the work. People will always try to find someone to blame. I feel sorry that this boy couldn’t make it through and because of that he is trying to slander NVCC.
If Jose Pinto was so concerned about ethics, why did he wait until he was kicked out of the program to report anything??
As a journalist and a human being, you should be ashamed of yourself for wasting any time writing this article. You have made yourself look unbelievably foolish and petty. I suppose there must simply be a lack of anything newsworthy to cover. I was a student at NVCC in the Radiologic Technology program from the fall of 2010 until the summer of 2011, at which time I chose to leave the program for personal reasons. Tony Santos was NOTHING other than a wonderful, helpful, caring, and brilliant teacher and mentor. This program is extremely rigorous and requires an incredible amount of time and effort on the part of its students in order to do well. It is unfortunate that as a result of this former student’s lack of dedication and skill, he felt the need to make these accusations. Unless this individual has a brain cell deficiency, he should have known the damage that would come of his words. It is ludicrous that Mr. Santos is being put in this very awful position of having to defend actions that should not have ever been a problem. The Radiologic Technology program is meant to TEACH its students to not only take an actual x-ray, but to recognize any anatomy which would be considered abnormal. The only way to achieve this goal is to actually SEE the difference between a typical and an atypical image. The patients on the images in question were most likely patients that students had already seen that day. Therefore, I do not see anything wrong with then taking the time to analyze the ANATOMY on these images in an attempt to become a more capable technologist. As shocking as this may be to read, the students in this program are there to learn to be the best Radiologic Technologists that they can possibly be, NOT to waste their very precious time worrying over such catty details as are outlined in this article. I am sorry that this student was unable to maintain his grades and ability in a hospital setting to a degree which is acceptable for this very challenging program. I am even more sorry that he chose to take his frustration, which was a direct result of his own mistakes, out on an individual like Tony Santos, who does nothing but offer his students support, encouragement, and the best education possible.
Perhaps you missed the classes on ethics which teaches that it is a violation of federal laws to disclose the identities of the patients in the X-rays without the patients permission, which the sainted instructor did not have.
I did not realize that the world was so black and white. In general, I think everyone could use a little more empathy. This is not a situation of a bad person committing some horrible crime. In my opinion, it is important to consider an individual’s motives when dissecting their actions. Tony does not have a malicious bone in his body. His only intention was to teach his students and give them the best possible tools for success. Failure is a part of life, it happens to everyone, and that is fine. What is not fine is to throw someone else under the bus because we are upset with our own inability to accomplish something. This whole situation is tarnishing a good man’s reputation. A reputation that he has worked hard for over the years, not only through teaching, but by being someone student’s could turn to when they needed support. There are a lot of people who deserve to have their good name dragged through the mud, but Tony Santos is not one of them.
Sorry, but this is a black or white area. Either you are or are not violating a patient’s right of privacy. No grey area here. The intention and motivation does not excuse violating the law. Students did not need the know the identities of patients to study their xrays. Simple.