Did you know that former President Grover Cleveland once had jaw surgery aboard his yacht to keep his cancer diagnosis secret? In today's world of tell-all press, it's hard to imagine a president getting away with such a thing. Still, during this year's exciting election campaign, a candidate's health issue that could lead voters to turn to vote for someone else is more likely to be swept under the rug than shared with the public.

Some people are asking -- do we, the public, have a right to know what's inside a candidate's medical records? Though it's routine for candidates to reveal their records voluntarily, some are saying that candidates should be required to undergo a full and thorough physical by a non-biased medical professional, and that the results should be made available to voters.

Because presidential candidates are still citizens, letting the Average Joe dig through personal information is obviously a privacy issue. What do you think -- should candidates bare all in order to be elected, or should their health information be kept private like everyone else?

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I imagine having medical information, heck any kind of information, about a celebrity at your fingertips has to be tempting. But when an employee at UCLA Medical Center couldn't fight her nosiness any longer and improperly accessed that information, she crossed a line.

She was fired for the breech, but 31 celebrities, politicians, and other famous people are left wondering what she knows and what she's planning on doing with it.

The woman managed to view Maria Shriver's records as well as Farrah Fawcett's. Fawcett is fighting cancer and shortly after the breech, information about her reached the tabloids, though officials say there's no evidence the woman sold any of the information she found. Though Fawcett knew her records had been accessed in 2007, the rest of the names have just recently become public.

It makes me wonder if she was hatching a money-making scheme or if she just couldn't contain her curiosity. Either way, she's now out of a job.

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It's the kind of thing you hear about on the news: Someone dies from an allergic reaction to a medication, a lethal combination of drugs and so on. But it could be you if you're not careful -- if you have allergies to drugs, are taking any drugs regularly, have a medical condition or have been treated for something in the past, it's important to have this information handy for medical professionals.

As this article from Prevention points out, it's important to keep track of your medical records, even if that involves simply stuffing them in a box. It might not seem like a big deal to you now, but this information could come in handy in the future. Besides, who is going to keep track of your health but ... you?

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Are you concerned about the safety of your medical records as it relates to privacy? You should be -- medical records are among the most sensitive records there are.

So, it comes as no surprise to many of us that newer federal patient privacy rules are starting to affect medical research. Patients are becoming harder to recruit and their medical records are even tougher to gain access to.

Is this good or bad? If patients voluntarily know that they'll be part of medical research and give access to records after knowing of all the privacy implications, so be it. Is this generally the case, though?

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Google continues to infiltrate many areas of our everyday lives. We use it to search for health problem causes, nutritional advice, psychological advice and where that evening movie is playing.

But, Google wants to get deeper into your life -- it wants to collect a set of health information problems and apply its search technology to get solutions to its users as neatly as possible.

A Google exec says that the company noticed the number of searches being done with its search engine had to do with hard-to-diagnose health problems. As standard Google fashion, the company listened to its customers using that method and has devised a solution to it that will most likely be incredibly useful for millions seeking advice on health issues.

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In an age where almost all personal information is now somewhere in electronic form, one would think that the efficiency created by having instant, global access to this type of information would be revolutionary. Well, except for the medical industry.

According to a new study, it was concluded that a better level of medical care was not necessarily attached to the presence of medical records that were kept electronically.

Now, direct medical care should not be tied by record-keeping in a way, but the availability and timeliness of patient records most likely does make everything from patient care to surgical procedures better handled with a minimization of mistakes. Maybe not.

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Although there are many benefits for doctor offices and other medical establishments to use electronic tools and computers to track patient information and hopefully provide better care, a new study finds that diabetes parents are not helped by all this new technology.

The study determined what I consider to be a pretty obvious conclusion: just changing the tools won't end up providing better care; the context in which those tools are used must change and evolve as well.

This study has a pretty decent amount of data behind it -- as the research included data on the care of 927 diabetic patients in 50 doctor's offices. Interestingly enough, those medical offices that offered electronic medical records actually offered a lower quality of care than those offices that did not offer electronic medical records.

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