Medical examinations for school and university

John, you are right to say that's what the nurse should have done, but of course in those days (which in some ways seem like another world now) attitudes were very different. School medicals back then were generally very embarrassing affairs and were often conducted with little or no consideration for the modesty of those being subjected to them.

When erections occurred, the way they were dealt with did vary somewhat, but unfortunately (as in the case you describe) sometimes the boy concerned was made to feel as though what had happened was his fault. What happened on these occasions was, as you said, often speculated upon beforehand and could certainly be somewhat exaggerated afterwards. It was inevitable that there was some 'playground whispering' about incidents - real or imagined.

When discussing this subject with a friend of mine many years ago (a very reliable source, not given to exaggeration or fantasising) he told me of an incident not unlike the one you mentioned. He was 3 years older than me and had, like me and so many others, undergone a medical before leaving school in the early 70s. The boy in front of him suffered the ultimate embarrassment of getting an erection and the doctor, rather huffily, told him to stand to one side. The only saving grace was that those who were waiting to see the doctor still had underpants on. Even so, it was obviously humiliating for the boy concerned and, fortunately, those of his fellows that were witness to the incident were generally sympathetic to his plight and felt that the doctor had been very wrong in what she had done.

I never had any experiences like this. The closest I can think of was the inevitable sports-related physicals which were sometimes done in groups. I don't recall any genital exam but did have a hernia exam once or twice for those. Could this also be a regional thing (and of course a national thing) but I'm thinking about regional U.S.A.

I have had some exam in school. we were taken in 3-4 at a time, and we were exposed for a short hernia or genital exam.

Many of my friends can't recall a similar exam, so it either became less common or was already rare when I was at school.

When i was a kid, late 1970's we had hearing tests and an occasional scoliosis screening....but the one memorable one was in 6th or 7th grade were we had to go in one by one, to a male doctor who listened to my breathing with a stethoscope and then opened my belt and lowered my pants and underwear did the testicle and hernia check.

My classmates and I all compared notes...and we were all caught off guard...it wasn't something that had happened in our school before...or after (I think)

Growing up in the UK we all had regular school medicals and I remember from an early age being fascinated by the thought of stethoscope placed on the girls chests. So much so that I managed to get a 'peek' at a girl having her medical just as the young female school doctor paced her stethoscope on her naked chest. We also had medicals the day before a school journey involving an overnight stay away.

I then went to an all boys grammar school and craved learning about the medical procedures in the girls school. One girlfriend told me in a letter that she had had a medical that day and was glad because it meant missing maths and wrote all about it. Another related how she was stood in front of the seated male doctor in only her underpants with his eyes almost exactly at her breast height. these are true stories. Does anything like this happen today? I suspect not.

I had a school exam after starting Grammar School in 1959 aged 11. Because my surname begins with A, I was called first, along with a girl in my class whose surname also began with A.

We were both embarrassed when the nurse told us to undress to our pants...I wore white boys underpants and she wore navy blue knickers....aged 11 she did not have breasts..anyway, we were weighed and our heights were measured before we saw the Doc...the girl went first while I watched...she was stethed back and front and then the Dr took her knickers off and told her to walk up and down the room naked....then he checked her reflexes and pressed her tummy while she lay naked on the couch. Then she was told to get dressed, and it was my turn....there I was, naked, walking up and down, then on the couch for reflexes and some gentle cock and ball feeling.... then we got back into our clothes. Fortunately, the 'B' kids did not arrive until we had finished our examinations....very embarassing indeed and something I guess both of us never forgot.

No mixed gender school exams in the U.S. when I was growing up. I could see that for little kids maybe, but we never had group physicals at all until I was 13 and in junior high school. I don't remember girls in junior high having physicals at school like the boys but that was a time when not many girls played sports and they were probably allowed to go to their own doctors for physicals. Girls would not have been allowed to watch the boys' exams although the girls usually knew when the boys had their group physicals. Almost all of the group exams I had at school were on Saturdays so no girls around except if they had to go with a parent to drop off a brother and then hung around with the parent until the exam was over. I saw only a few girls in all of those years who hung around like that and it made me a little embarrassed even though they weren't allowed into the gym during the physicals.

I had a school exam after starting Grammar School in 1959 aged 11. Because my surname begins with A, I was called first, along with a girl in my class whose surname also began with A.

We were both embarrassed when the nurse told us to undress to our pants...I wore white boys underpants and she wore navy blue knickers....aged 11 she did not have breasts..anyway, we were weighed and our heights were measured before we saw the Doc...the girl went first while I watched...she was stethed back and front and then the Dr took her knickers off and told her to walk up and down the room naked....then he checked her reflexes and pressed her tummy while she lay naked on the couch. Then she was told to get dressed, and it was my turn....there I was, naked, walking up and down, then on the couch for reflexes and some gentle cock and ball feeling.... then we got back into our clothes. Fortunately, the 'B' kids did not arrive until we had finished our examinations....very embarassing indeed and something I guess both of us never forgot.

Johnzzzz - there is absolutely NO WAY in the UK that schoolchildren of the opposite sex would be examined together like that. As for the doctor taking her knickers off again that WOULD NOT happen. Watching? I think not. Whether it be 1959 or whenever, procedures like you have described do not take place at least not in this Country.

Must agree with Elizabeth2010. Mixed exams would not have happened. Only ever had 1 group exam. For a school journey, aged 9. The young female doctor was just going through the motions. The boys were lined up about 2 metres from the seated doctor. When called forward, it was a look in the mouth, quick steth front and back and that was about it, probably 2 minutes maximum. The girls went first and I recall on my way to the medical room a girl who had already been examined telling me that the stethoscope was cold! The following year was even quicker, this time with a male doctor. Vest left on, single sided flat stethoscope slipped inside vest and that really was it. Does the school journey medical still take place?

During my childhood we were examined at school every second year. Mostly just the height and weight and then hearing and seeing capabilities. This was normally done by a nurse (specializing in kids health). Only once - in the 5th or 6th grade, I think - we were also examined more thoroughly by a male medical doctor. Only one of us at the time. I remember we queued outside the door in the hallway. He used the stethoscope, looked inside the ears and so on ... and finally the rumor of the hallway became true: He asked us to lower our pants and he performed a testicle and hernia check. That was in the early 80's. I don't think any doctor are checking the young kids today. Only the development in height and weight is monitored during the young years.

For example we have 3 mandatory and one facultative exams in canton of Bern.

That's pretty much similar what we have here in Finland.

In Italy in the late '60 at primay school every class was mandatory examined by a md.

the most embarassing moment was when the md asked the guys to lower pants and then he touched the penis end the scrotum.during the hernia check he used to say "cought". I received the same order durng the exam for military service

In the US the school exams were always a joke. I was nearsighted for years, and despite them testing me (and passing me through, seemed rushed) my eyesight was actually pretty awful. Took one of the teachers to realize I couldn't see.

I only had a entrance physical for elementary school at Age 6. And a yearly dentist visit in School till grade 4.

In grade 5 I was called into the nurses room where a Doctor sat on a chair. He had me come forward to him and he undid my pants. Then he put his hand down my pants and felt my testicles. As I was leaving there was a girl next in line who was being summoned into the Doctor. Just entering into puberty and having had experienced the odd wet dream, I was excited at the thought of the Doctor putting his hand on this girls vagina. I had yet to feel this magical part of a girls body. I am not sure why the Doctor felt my testicles or if he did in fact put his hand down the girls pants, but to this day I fantasize about being that Doctor...all the players being somewhat older...luckily my morals out weigh my sexual desire, but that experience (I am now 61 years old) has shaped my entire sexual being. I love examining my partners.

What was the exam for 60s man? was it just a general inspection or was some one sick in the school?

I have thought that maybe I was a victim of abuse. I can't recall if the Doctor had someone else in the room...which would be the norm today. Back in the 60's there was a lot that went unchallenged.

Thats true things were much different back then. doctors often would do exams without someone else in room

...which would be the norm today. Back in the 60's there was a lot that went unchallenged.

The early 60's and late 50's were not far removed from the times of the great World Wars of the 20th century. When societies become used to drafting millions and tens of millions of fighting men into vast organizations of all kinds - not only armed forces, but also attending labor organizations and other social structures, then Individuality as a strictly to be enforced right, becomes much less important in the scheme of things. Other factors such as (perceived) national survival, military necessity and a striving towards national dominance becomes more important to society than worrying about the feelings of individuals.

Doctors practicing in the 60's would invariably have experienced first-hand the conditions and modes of thought from these war filled times. It will certainly have carried over into their personal lives for many years or decades to come.

Remember the first line from 'the Go-Between'? - "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

It's a useful little phrase to remember when commenting about things that happened long ago.

I only had a entrance physical for elementary school at Age 6. And a yearly dentist visit in School till grade 4.

That's how the things are nowadays in Germany as far as I know. However, when East Germany was exist school physicals were more thorough and performed regularly.

In our country school medical exams are obligatory every year. Usually group of doctors come to school. They all sit in one of the empty class room and there receive patientes. I don't know about boys exam but girls have to undress to their underwear and walk from one doctor to other. Usually all doctors are female. We had not need to take off bras or panties at all.

Seems, Irina and me - we live in the same country. 😃 And for boys 15 y.o. and older school medical exams are obligatory every six months. Also, boys exam are very similar - boys have to undress to their underwear and walk from one doctor to other. Almost all doctors are female, but sometimes one or two male doctors may be at exam. We had not need to take off our underwear at all, but front of surgeon it's mandatory. Usually, we are walking from doctor to another doctor - 2 or 3 boys. And when surgeon examines, especially when she examines ass, commands to bend and move apart the buttocks with hands, it's very embarrassing.

I remember one in middle school and one in high school.

This idea of groups of doctors in the school does indeed sound like something from decades ago. I believe that in the UK routine examinations do not take place any more in state schools. However, if you look at websites of private schools, some make a point of insisting on regular examinations throughout school life.

I agree with agracier below about how military experiences from WWII, Korea, and even Vietnam influenced how doctors and nurses in private practice handled physical exams. It influenced our parents very much too. The result was that group physicals for boys for school and sports were considered necessary, acceptable, and economical. There were no concerns about modesty and that was probably healthier than some of the excessive modesty today. I stood in lines of boys wearing nothing more than our underpants in a large gym and we all ended up with our underwear around our ankles by the end of the exam. In wrestling weigh-ins, I stood in lines of boys wearing a jockstrap or nothing at all. Getting to wear anything, even briefs or a jockstrap, was considered "dressed" for a group or individual exam in the 60s to 80s and that was more clothing than was allowed in the military for induction exams and other inspections before that. A boy who refused to undress was considered a wuss and it just didn't happen.

I played football and wrestled. The school always offered free physicals to all the kids that played sports. The girls had theirs on one Saturday, the boys on a different one. It was always in the gym, and yes there were women in the gym and at some of the stations.

No,... I think it was his mistake to not make the instructions clear. Also, most docs would have checked your abdomen before they had you drop everything, or at least in the same sequence.

I had a similar experience a while back, where I had to walk to the end of the table with the stuff around my ankles.

We had school medicals every year

Just school examination, i don't see anything of guilty in it xD

We had mixed medicals here in the UK back in the late 1960's at Primary School It was any early turn on the see the girls in there underwear waiting to see the doctor. I think these were stopped in the 70's.