One of the things that I often am asked is, “can you actually use real patient names when you write your articles on them?”

I am well aware of HIPAA.

HIPAA only goes back 50 years, though, and I spend most of my time on patients from the period of 1879 (Opening Day!) to about 1915 or so. The absolute best records we have on patients are from the years 1910-1914. For some reason those records are extremely detailed and rich in descriptions. We are digitizing these records and hope to have transcriptions of them in the future. I will also probably write up several stories for publication in The Pueblo Lore.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for many of these patients. I’d rather honor their existence than have them forgotten.