Then and now

I am a Spanish woman who went to a school where they gave us a medical check-up and my mother also took me to the pediatrician. My ex-husband exactly the same. Do you think that before it gave the same feeling of restlessness, uncertainty, that it gives children now? I want to talk to men who can explain how they felt, if they thought about the check-up all year long, if they were impressed by the medical consultation, if the pediatrician was a man or a woman, etc.

I think children now have more privacy, and are actually treated like more like people, and not just objects or mere possessions of our parents, like when I was a child in 60’s and 70’s here in the USA.

School health checks were not announced until just moments before they were performed. Us boys would be lined up in the gymnasium locker room in the nude, except for our jockstraps (with our bare butts exposed) for visual skin health and parasite checks by our female school nurse and male physical education teacher. If a problem was detected, the boy would be removed from the line and taken to the separate shower room for a more intimate examination. We never knew when it was going to happen, or how often.

If I knew ahead of time that my mother was going to take me for a doctor’s appointment, I would suffer greatly in anticipation of having my clothing removed and receiving a rectal thermometer. I never slept well the night or nights before. I remember considering running away from home just to avoid it. Anticipation was always way worse than the actual appointment.

I want to talk to men who can explain how they felt, if they thought about the check-up all year long, if they were impressed by the medical consultation, if the pediatrician was a man or a woman, etc.

I went to a pediatrician just after my birthday each year, in the 80s and early 90s, with my last visit in 1992 at 16. In those later years, it was the most exposed I was all year, since my high school did not have physical education after the first year. In retrospect, I don't think I was nervous, since it had been the same process every year as far back as I can remember, but rather I was embarrassed by my maturing body still being in a pediatrician's office with cartoon wallpaper. The medical staff would see me in just my underwear while the nurse weight me in the hallway, and the doctor (a man) and my mom would see me without my underwear during the exam. I now know I was a fairly late bloomer, but at the time I had no clue how “normal” my development was or not, since I didn't have opportunities to compare myself to other boys. All I had to go on was the reactions of the adults during those annual well-child exams.

Grew up in the 50’s and 60”s. We had a family doctor who was a friend of my dads. Saw him till I moved out in college. He was friendly and always interested in what we were doing- especially sports. I looked forward to seeing him because he seemed interested in me and treated me like a “young man”. Never any fear or dread about going to the doc. Same with our kids after age 4-6. Saw the same doc we saw and no issues about seeing him. Our family had close ties to the medical community. They treated us kids almost like family. Only got a few group sports physicals in Jr high. High school and college sport physicals were with our family doc.

Bottom line, I didn’t notice any difference between my doctor experience growing and my kids.

I am not sure all that much has changed from “then” to “now.” As a teen, the idea of having to go for a physical was met with a lot of anticipatory anxiety and dread. It didn't matter if I knew or was told that day about an exam. It always meant being undressed and for sure removing my briefs either for a temp or for the exam. Shots often were given only to add insult to injury.

I suspect the only major difference now is that RTs are no longer routine. A thorough exam is still just that and one is necessarily going to be exposed, felt, and probed.