Question

Read the passage and answer the question. Passage: Every patient who enters a hospital leaves behind a trail of paper: admission forms, prescriptions, laboratory reports and discharge summaries. Together these papers form the medical record, a document that follows the patient from one department to another and, years later, can decide an insurance claim or settle a question in a court of law. Because the record holds such sensitive details about a person's health, hospitals guard it with strict rules. Only the treating doctor and the staff directly involved in the patient's care may open the file, and no part of it may be shared with outsiders without the patient's written consent. A clerk who files records therefore carries a responsibility as serious as that of the doctor: a misplaced file or a careless word in the corridor can expose private facts that a patient trusted the hospital to keep. Modern hospitals now store records on computers, where passwords and access logs add a second layer of protection, but the principle has not changed: the record belongs to the patient, and the hospital is only its keeper. Who is allowed to open a patient's file?