Former resident physician kept patient docs without permission

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is alerting hundreds of patients that a former resident physician stored confidential medical documents without consent.

How many victims? 1,500.

What type of personal information? Names, partial addresses, medical record numbers, birth dates, diagnoses, medications and lab results.

What happened? The school learned of this because the resident produced the sensitive documents as part of a lawsuit against the university related to her firing. Her termination was not related to the breach.

What was the response? UAMS notified the victims by letter and through its website.

Details: The resident pledged under oath that she did not share the data with anyone else. The documents now are sealed under a court order.

Source: arkansasonline.com, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "UAMS warns patients of privacy breach," Nov. 26, 2012.