I don’t really know how to define best. So, I think that I will define define that as the most skilled or efficient and I think that I will have to go with the last nurse that I every remember taking my temperature rectally.
I got lots of rectal temperature from my mom and various nurses up until I got switched to oral temps somewhere around 6 or 7 years old. I don’t remember exactly when the transition was, but I do remember getting rectal temps at one hospital visit when I was still in kindergarten, so I am thinking that it was around first grade that I fully made the switch to oral.
A few years later, somewhere in the 10 to 12 year old range, I was in the hospital for a surgery. They had had been taking my temperature orally, but when I came back to my room from surgery, I got a surprise. As soon as I was back in my bed, my nurse swooped in like a ninja, flipped me up on my side, slipped in the rectal thermometer, and had her hand up against my butt to hold it in place before I could utter a surprised “What!”
No warning. No “I have to take your temp dear”. No “I know you are a big boy, but I need to use your bottom this time” She just stepped into to where the orderly was a second ago and me in position and penetrated before I knew what was going on.
That was the only time that stay that I got a rectal temperature too. The nurse never told my why she took that one rectally other than to say “It’s hospital policy.”
Still she was definitely the most efficient. I guess that she at least avoided me arguing that I was too old for the rectal thermometer.