1980’s BMJ article about UK school medicals

This is an interesting article, dating as it does from 1986, around the very time I would have been experiencing this very kind of ‘school entry medical exam’ in the UK.

https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/61/8/807.full.pdf

I have very vague memories of medicals in school from around that time, but my memory is so foggy that I can’t remember any details. I have though, always had an inkling that something intimate happened during it but have never been able to specifically remember. However this article seems to confirm that I was indeed probably given a genital exam by the school doctor, checking for hernia and undescended testes.

Interestingly it says that as of 1984 “all but one of the 201 district health authorities in the UK were undertaking routine examinations of children who were ‘rising 5’ and embarking on full time education.

In the appendix of the article they include the actual exam used for these exams, and under the title ‘Rest of body’ it has a line which reads:

Testes - Down - Up: R / L

I’m not sure for how much longer these routine exams continued in UK schools, but do any other Brits on here, of similar age, remember going through this exam?

I was at school in the UK around that time and I remember having a school entry medical exam when I was about 5.

I remember having to get undressed in the corridor while the previous child was getting examined. When it was your turn you had to go into the exam room wearing just your socks and underpants.

Then my memory is a bit hazy. The next thing I remember is standing in front of the doctor and her telling me to take off my socks, which I did. Then she told me to take off my underpants, which I also did.

I then had to do some naked exercises in front of the doctor. These included standing next to the wall for a posture check, bending over so she could check my spine, and walking back and forth across the room naked.

Finally i had to stand in front of her while she had a quick feel of my penis and balls. She then told me to bend over and quickly put a finger up my bum, and then that was it.

Being born in 1985 my exams were slightly later than that, but I didn't get an exam on entering school at five. My first exam at school was when I was seven. We undressed to vest and briefs in the classroom went into the school hall, which wasn't anything unusual as that was how we undressed for indoor pe at that age. It was a pretty basic exam, height and weight checked, eyes and ears examined, and they listened to my lungs, heart and belly by lifting my vest to listen. I can't recall anything much else.

I didn't get my genitals examined like you guys at that age. My first hernia exam was at eleven, and I didn't get a proper genital exam until I went to high school when they also checked my testicals, shaft, gland and pubes.

I too was born in 1985 and I can remember a large static caravan from the local health authority use to turn up at my school every year, and all reception students were examined over a 2 week period (I think). I can remember the back door lead into a small waiting room, with a built in padded seat where once inside the nurse came through and asked my mum to get me undressed to my vest and underpants (everyone wear briefs at that age in my class) and then we were called in to the main bit of the caravan. I remember there been several toys in the room and been asked to catch a ball and hop, but can’t remember how I was examined so I am unsure if my testicles were checked or if I checked for a hernia but after reading that I guess I must have been. That was the only exam I had at school.

I went through the UK schooling system 1968-1980, from I've mentioned it before, only a cursory look over examination which was height and weight at 5, prior to starting school, stripped to underwear which stayed on throughout, done with girls and boys present together, the examination with a doc lasted minutes, Mother present. No other school medical examination until age 16. Again, this time, removed shirt and shoes. Height weight, cursory exam. Not even stethed. There were some inoculations though, all in the arm. TB/BCG, Tetanus. I know of some school kids at the same time had more thorough exams, but was based on parental permission. I was one of those who stressed to my parents that a Dr's business should stay out of my life unless I want their involvement. Since then we have had a great relationship.

This post has awakened a long forgotten experience.

I recall feeling terrified at the prospect of having an injection in my arm at school. I would be about six years old maybe? This would be about 1967. Stories would abound from the boys in the school that the nurse would do things to your “willy”. Waiting in the corridor with the other boys just in our vests and underpants, very apprehensive. Although the thought of having a needle did terrify me, my main worry was that the nurse would pull back my foreskin and examine my glans. Although at the time, my foreskin had been constantly retracted by an older girl (read my other posts regarding this), I was afraid that the nurse would see the little hole, or the part where the inner foreskin had been snapped away from the glans corona, and I was frightened that she would ask questions how it occurred. To be honest, I do not think that the nurse retracted my foreskin, she may well just have had a little peek at my little penis, probably to check for phimosis.