Idiotic

Remember how I requested my medical records from my childhood hospital at the beginning of August? Well, actually it wasn't until Sept. 12 that I officially requested them, since my first letter (being non-standard non-14-point etc.) apparently only counted as a request for the request form. But ever since Sept. 12 I've been anticipating the records arriving any day, since HIPAA requires that they send me my records within five days of receipt of the request.

Today, instead, I just got ANOTHER official request form, because I did not send a copy of a photo ID with the first request form. This brings up two immediate question:

1) Why do they not tell you, anywhere on the form or cover letter, that you need to send a copy of a photo ID? Are people who need their medical records supposed to be psychic?

2) Why on earth do they need a photo ID when I'm making this request by mail and they will never see me?

So I have now sent them ANOTHER copy of the form, with photo ID. (Just to be on the safe side, I sent copies of ID in both my maiden and married names.) Anyone care to bet on whether I'll actually have the records in two weeks?

For the life of me I don't see why this has to be so difficult. They're my medical records, about my body, paid for by my parents. Why is it that after two months of trying I still can't see them? I am beginning to share my non-American doctors' bafflement at American medical privacy laws....

Orthopraxy

The subject line of this post -- orthopraxy -- is a word that means "right practice." Its counterpart, orthodoxy ("right belief") is a more familiar word, probably because Christianity is more concerned with orthodoxy and less with orthopraxy than many other religions. This has quite probably not always been the case, and it's certainly not an unassailable position, biblically speaking. Nonetheless, if I polled all of you about the requirements of being a Christian, most of the responses would probably involve beliefs people feel Christians ought to hold rather than ritual actions Christians ought to undertake.

Islam tends more towards emphasizing orthopraxy: if you poll Muslims about what it takes to be Muslim, most will probably tell you about the Five Pillars of Islam. Only one of these pillars (the shahada) is doctrinal; the other four (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, charity) have to do with practice. Of course Muslims also have doctrines, and of course Christians also have prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and charity. The point is simply that the emphasis is different.

Today I realized something about people I know here who are not very strictly observant. I've sort of thought of them as progressive Muslims, as I think of myself as a progressive Christian, because they fall short of Muslim orthopraxy like I fall short of Christian orthodoxy. I think the analogy is lacking something, though, because in reality I do not see myself as falling short when my doctrines are not completely mainstream. In conversation with a less-than-perfectly-observant Muslim recently, I realized that she does believe that she is falling short, and that it is better to be more strictly observant than not. So while she doesn't wear hijab, for example, she is absolutely 100% clear that women who DO wear hijab are better Muslims than she is. I've had similar conversations with others about prayer five times a day; even if not everyone does it, everyone at least seems to agree that they ought to. It's not that they have some alternative explanation of the Qur'an by which it's OK for women not to cover or for Muslims not to pray five times a day; they just don't live up to the conservative interpretation, which they still accept as valid.

As a liberal Christian, I absolutely do NOT believe that Christians with more strict interpretations of Christianity are better Christians than I am. It's somewhat confusing to me to imagine accepting a more conservative interpretation of Christianity as valid but believing that I am failing to live up to it.