Prime Candidate for a Rectal Temperature Video

Saw this video of a nurse trying to take a boy's temperature orally. He doesn't seem too interested in cooperating with the nurse. Back in the day, if I'd behaved like this, the nurse would've pulled my pants down and took my temperature rectally without hesitation.

https://dissolve.com/video/Nurse-taking-temperature-little-boy-royalty-free-stock-video-footage/001-D1239-29-009

I'm not surprised. I hate it too if sombody put something into my mouth. And he is too young to check it orally I think.

The boy isn't being difficult, he doesn't understand exactly how to place the thermometer under his tongue,

If the nurse was better at explaining how to do it, he would have done better.

Maybe he’s too young for oral. I would’ve flipped him over and put it up his butt

Reminds me of being a kid at the doctor's office. Nurses would often have a hard time getting the thermometer to register properly, so it was not uncommon to have it taken a couple of times or have an extended period with the thermometer in my mouth. It may be that I had a little less practice as I got rectal at home, but oral at the doctor and school nurse. In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised they didn't revert to or threaten rectal.

I think that most pediatricians didn't really care if you could hold a thermometer under your tongue. It was either their decision or the nurse's judgement call, to require all patients to have rectal temps. regardless. That blanket policy was also in place for the pediatric wards in hospitals. My guess is that plenty of young adults, who were admitted there, up to the age of 21, had to endure it. I was fortunate, in that my family doctor not only had no nurse, but never once took my temp. rectally. Usually he made house calls. I recall that some of my classmates were subjected to rectal temps., even during an overnight stay in the hospital, for a minor issue. I knew a girl in college, who was at least 19, and was home for the summer, when she had been given a rectal temp. while on the pediatrics ward...even though she was perfectly capable of an oral temp. She told me how humiliating it was for her. She asked for an oral temp., but the nurse wouldn't listen. She decided to just give in and accept it.

She should have grasped and raised his ankles with one hand, and pushed a lubricated thermometer into his bottom with the other, and the issue would have been solved.