Looks like the simplest way to do this might be to slurp all the data into a hash using XML::Simple then either clean up the hash or extract the data from it into another hash as is appropriate:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump::Streamer;
use XML::Simple;

my $str = do {local $/; <DATA>};
my %data = %{XMLin ($str)};

Dump (\%data);

[download]
__DATA__
<PATIENT_DATA>
<SA_PATIENT>
<MY_PATIENT_ID>YYYYY</MY_PATIENT_ID>
<MY_BIRTH_DATE>123-45-9876</MY_BIRTH_DATE>
<MY_FIRST_NAME>FRED</MY_FIRST_NAME>
<MY_GENDER>M</MY_GENDER>
<MY_LAST_NAME>MUPPET</MY_LAST_NAME>
<Race>Muppet</Race>
</SA_PATIENT>
<SA_PATIENT>
<MY_PATIENT_ID>XXXXX</MY_PATIENT_ID>
<MY_BIRTH_DATE>123-45-6789</MY_BIRTH_DATE>
<MY_FIRST_NAME>BERT</MY_FIRST_NAME>
<MY_GENDER>M</MY_GENDER>
<MY_LAST_NAME>PUPPET</MY_LAST_NAME>
<Address>123 SESAME ST</Address>
<City>NEW YORK</City>
<State>NY</State>
<Zip>10110</Zip>
<Race>Caucasian</Race>
</SA_PATIENT>
</PATIENT_DATA>

[download]

Prints:

$HASH1 = { SA_PATIENT => [
           {
             MY_BIRTH_DATE => '123-45-9876',
             MY_FIRST_NAME => 'FRED',
             MY_GENDER     => 'M',
             MY_LAST_NAME  => 'MUPPET',
             MY_PATIENT_ID => 'YYYYY',
             Race          => 'Muppet'
           },
           {
             Address  => '123 SESAME ST',
             City     => 'NEW YORK',
             MY_BIRTH_DATE
                      => '123-45-6789',
             MY_FIRST_NAME
                      => 'BERT',
             MY_GENDER
                      => 'M',
             MY_LAST_NAME
                      => 'PUPPET',
             MY_PATIENT_ID
                      => 'XXXXX',
             Race     => 'Caucasian',
             State    => 'NY',
             Zip      => 10110
           }
         ] };

[download]
</readme>
DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

In reply to Re^3: Rewriting XML::DOM based module as XML::SAX by GrandFather
in thread Rewriting XML::DOM based module as XML::SAX by Cappadonna3030

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