My most embarrassing exam was definitely the last one that I had with my pediatrician. I was 18 or 19 at the time and I drove myself to the doctors office, checked in, and waited to get called back. Nurse calls me back, takes me to an exam room, goes over some medical history, and asks me to take off my shoes so we could get my height and weight. I took off my shoes and she led me to the scales that were in the hallway and we get my height, weight, and blood pressure since that’s where the machine was located. Blood pressure was a little high because I was a bit nervous, which she noted. She takes me back to the exam room, hands me a binder filled with teen health related material, and instructs me to take everything off except for my underwear and says “the doctor will be in shortly”. She leaves the room and I proceed to get undressed taking off my shirt, pants, and socks. I wasn’t offered a gown, so I just sat there in my underwear waiting for the doctor. As it was summer and the AC was on, I started getting a bit cold so I wrapped my sweatshirt around me to try to get comfortable.
After a few minutes the doctor comes in and he goes over some medical history and asks me a few questions. One being where my mom was and I told him that I had driven myself. He was like “oh ok, no problem. Just hop up onto the exam table then.” As I got up to walk over to the table, I noticed that he was looking at my feet. This made me a bit uncomfortable because there was no explanation of why he was doing it. It appeared that he was just staring at my feet for some reason. I get up on the table and he checked all the basics eyes, ears, nose, mouth, heart, and lungs which wasn’t so bad. Then he checked my reflexes and did this thing with my ankles where he pushed my feet up. Not sure what he was checking for there, but it was something he always did so it was no cause for concern. After that, he had me lay down and checked my abdomen, felt my femoral pulses, and then moved down to my ankles and feet where he checked reflexes and pedal pulses. Then he asked me to hop off the table and stand up. He positioned me towards the end of the table and told me to take off the sweatshirt that I had still wrapped around me and pull down my underwear. So I took the sweatshirt off and lowered my underwear to the floor, now standing there completely naked and my doctor said “ok, now I’m just going to touch your testicles, your privates” and proceeded to examine my testicles and check me for a hernia. Once that was completed, he had me bend over and touch my toes and in the process I managed to pull my underwear up. He checked my spine and then after that he had me walk across the room on my toes and heels, again with no explanation why and once again I saw him looking at my feet as I walked. This was the first time he had me do this, so I thought it was a bit odd. Once that was completed, I was allowed to get dressed and he went over the results of the exam and left the room.
What made me feel really embarrassed during this exam is that he spent a lot of time looking at my feet with no explanation as to why which made me feel a bit self-conscious. I wasn’t always offered a gown so that wasn’t a surprise, he explained what he was doing when he examined everything else so no concern there, but not when he had me walk around the room on my toes and heels and why he spent so much time looking at my feet. Had he explained that he wanted to check my gait because he thought he noticed something and wanted to make sure all was normal, it would have been fine. I didn’t call him out on it because I was so embarrassed, nervous, creeped out, and full of anxiety that I just wanted to get out of there. I transferred to a family doctor after that experience. Looking back, while this was the most embarrassing exam that I had, it was also the most thorough which I did appreciate.