Could rectal temperatures be considered “Medical Trauma”?

Medical trauma has been defined as emotional and physical responses to pain, injury, serious illness, medical procedures and frightening treatment experiences. There are lots of different experiences related to illness, injury or medical treatment that can be difficult, uncomfortable or frightening.

I’m currently doing some personal research and would like to ask if anyone else feels they were traumatized during childhood by being forced to have their temperature taken rectally. Personally, I believe those experiences caused immense traumas that altered my psychosexual development during adolescence. As we know, rectal temperatures were once commonplace both at home and at family doctor’s offices across the land. During the early 1980’s my pediatrician’s office policy was to take rectal temperatures from all patients under 13, which I found rather demeaning since my mom had already switched us to oral temperatures at home when we were around 5 or 6. Despite my pleadings for oral temperatures at the doctor’s office, my mom (and the nurses) were unsympathetic and remained emphatic about taking it rectally. My mom’s stance was “do as you’re told and stop embarrassing me” and the nurse’s was an apologetic “I’m sorry dear, but the doctor makes the rules here and we have to follow them”. I’m still somewhat baffled by how they never once considered the potentially harmful emotional or psychological effects of forcing this procedure on a young child. Naturally, I’ve always assumed it was obvious to most educated medical professionals that inserting a lubricated object into a child’s rectum (usually against his will) just might have some potential negative consequences regardless of its purpose or intention. Under any other circumstance this act would undeniably be considered sexual abuse yet this routine and widespread practice carried on for decades with little discretion or concern for the child’s emotional wellbeing.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who had their temperatures taken with a rectal thermometer had subsequently developed psychological problems nor am I saying that rectal temperatures were intentionally abusive but I do wonder if they should have been used far more sparingly, and only when absolutely necessary. For example, I believe that my pediatrician should have used better judgement by phasing out rectal temperatures on his patients over the age of 6 or 7 instead of arbitrarily applying it to the very wide age group of birth to 13. I realize that medical standards were once very different but even back then some pediatric offices were prudent enough to only take the rectal temperatures of infants, toddlers and occasionally a pre-schooler with a fever. My elementary and middle school nurses were safely using oral thermometers on children as young as 5 or 6 so I never understood why it should be any different at our family doctor’s office. It’s probably safe to assume it was strictly a liability issue (injury from biting glass thermometers) which gave some doctors anxiety and had little to do with the trusty, reliable “gold standard” accuracy of the rectal method.

Over time I came to dread doctor visits not for the blood tests or vaccinations, but for the mandatory rectal temperatures taken during every visit. That dread only grew more intense throughout my middle school years when my temperature continued being taken rectally well into my 8th grade year. Although I was told rectal temperatures were taken “for my own good” I always knew they were excessive and unnecessary which made them all the more distressing. I’ll give you an example. In 7th or 8th grade my mom took me to the doctor because I was excessively biting the fingernail and surrounding skin on my right thumb which had caused some swelling. My temperature was taken rectally and we left with a prescription for a topical steroid cream which almost completely healed it overnight. The next day we went back for a follow-up and when the nurse instructed me to undress I told her the doctor just wanted see my thumb. She knew that but said I still had to undress because she had to take my temperature. Rectal temperatures were too often just frivolously taken when they truly weren’t necessary. Were they really expecting me to be running a fever due to some nail biting and was it necessary to humiliate me two days in a row for no good reason? It’s obvious to me that rectal temperatures (especially for middle school kids) only remained the status quo for so many years because insensitive doctors never bothered to question their actual necessity.

Currently, it seems that rectal temperatures have fallen out of favor and are only reserved for children under 4… and this is likely because we now have a greater awareness, sensitivity and respect for children’s body privacy and even for their consent. We’ve also gained a better understanding of the potential trauma and emotional harm that certainly results when a child’s body privacy is violated. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of adults who had their temperatures taken rectally as children were not negatively affected by those experiences. Perhaps they disliked it in the moment but it had no profound effect on them emotionally or psychologically. As for the rest of us, we have obviously been greatly effected but my question is was I negatively or positively effected? In other words is this fetish good or bad? For me it’s both and I’m wondering if some of you might agree.