Not a Perl answer either, just a note of concern -- I do hope you've changed the names of the doctor and patient involved in this obviously-medical information. If not I suggest you go back and do so... All it takes in one person to find this via Google...
--

“Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.”
M-J D