Continuing on with my series about my doctor/pediatrician's office when I was going up, I'll move on to the exam rooms. In previous posts, I mentioned the very cold and non-child friendly environment of the waiting area and in another post, how the doctor and nurses were dressed back in the 1970s. Now, the exam rooms.
Sitting in the waiting room as a child at the doctor was like sitting in a court room waiting on the jury to deliver your sentence - more than just a little stressful. After being called back to the exam room by a nurse, the atmosphere behind the waiting room door wasn't exactly comforting.
First of all, there was the powerful smell of alcohol. I guess because it was a pediatrician office and with babies, accidents happen, cleanliness was a must. And, I'll give my pediatrician office that - it was spotless. There was zero concern about being barefoot in that place.
The connector hallway to the exam rooms was straight from the post-war era with tiled walls and floors with doors to the left and the right, adorned with little "slots" where the patient's clipboards were kept, signaling that a patient was inside. Going down that hallway as a small child and hearing another child scream or cry behind one of those doors brought instant fear of getting some type of a painful shot. Needless to say, there were no Mickey Mouse murals or anything child friendly along the walk down the hall.
The exam rooms all looked the same. Small with a brown or tan exam table and a couple metal chairs for the parent and anyone else to sit while the doctor and nurse did their thing. One of those standing scales with the slide bar and a pop-up ruler like thing to measure the patient's height. There was in each room, a very horizontal casement window up high so thankfully, no one could see in.
I remember scanning the room to look for any signs of scary instruments but each time, the counter had the basics including jars of alcohol with the thermometers inside them (rectal in case anyone is wondering).
Oh, and the place was not air conditioned but that's how many buildings that were built in that era were.
For those reading this born after the 1980s, this probably sounds like ancient history but life was different back then in my little town