An ailing patient should have easy access to his or her doctor’s record of treating similarly afflicted patients. Through gaining such access, the ailing patient may better determine whether the doctor is competent to treat that medical condition.

Healthcare is a universal necessity that can always benefit from operational improvements. However, the recommendation to allow ailing patients to access a doctor's record raises numerous concerns for privacy and may not assimilate into the current healthcare structure. Providing ailing patients with access to their doctor's record of treating similarly afflicted patients would infringe upon the privacy of highly sensitive information, ultimately outweighing any minor benefits for the patients treatment.

Releasing afflicted patients' records, even to other patients, raises numerous privacy concerns and informational misuse. Health records can be misused, mistreated, and misinterpreted. A patient is most likely not qualified to interpret the medical information, if it were to be provided, nor is he or she required to. Doctors undergo rigorous examinations, procedures, and residency requirements to earn their degrees and titles. They earn their positions by the approval of others specialized in their field. If an ailing patient was provided with the treatment a doctor prescribes to other patients, their interpretation of the doctors performance should not negate the entire approval process a doctor undergos. Allowing a patient to simply pick and choose a doctor based on his treatment of similarly afflicted patients is not necessarily indicative of the doctors performance. Additionally, all patients deserve to have highly sensitive information protected from publicity. Medical records are certainly sensitive documents, and publicising the information to anyone other than the doctor and others the patient directly approves of is an infringement on the patients privacy. Such information could easily be misused, and if leaked out to the broader public, could be used as blackmail or have other deleterious consequences

Adopting the recommendation would publicise medical records to all those similarly afflicted, allowing patients to determine whether a doctor is fit to treat them by their standards. For example, a certain patient may have just been diagnosed with skin cancer. After being assigned to a specialized skin cancer doctor, that patient would want the right to receive the best treatment available. If the recommendation were to be implemented, the patient would be given access to the medical records of prior patients the doctor treated. This may lead to the patient concluding that the doctor is or is not the best healthcare professional to provide him or her treatment. If the patient determines that he would rather seek a different skin cancer doctor, numerous consequences may arise. For one, the patient have misinterpreted the doctors performance. Revieweing previous treatments given to afflicted patients is not a concrete justification for a doctors capabilities. For example, the doctor may have a high mortality rate in his patients, but this may be due to he or she receiving the patients in their terminal stages of skin cancer. It may be unbeknowing to the patient reviewing the medical records that the doctors high mortality rate is not due to his lack of medical capabilities, but rather the other patients dire scenarios. Choosing to seek treatment from a different doctor may lead to delayed treatment for the diagnosed patient. If the recommendation had never been implemented and the patient was never provided access to the afflicted patients medical records, then this misinterpretation and delay in treatment would not arise. Additionally, it would leave the determination of a doctors medical capabilities up to the healthcare professionals that aprove and allow a doctor to work in his or her field.

To conclude, releasing a doctor's record of treating afflicted patients to an ailing patient would lead to a breach of privacy rights and ultimately consequences that can hinder a patients treatment. A patient may not be qualified to interprety such medical records, and may even misinterpret the information. This could lead to potentially delayed treatment. It also negates the effectiveness of medical practioners approval system, making all the exams and residency requirements at the mercy of a patients decision.