Sports Physicals - level of thoroughness

I know there have been a couple of threads about sports physicals already. But I'm curious to see how the level of thoroughness changes as the level of competition changes. Middle school vs high school vs college vs professional (if anyone has experience)?

Anyone who wants to chat privately can message me as well.

Thanks and looking forward to your replies!

Not physicals, they're the same. But drug checks may have you completely stripped at the college level for the observed urine sample.

The pros go through an insanely detailed series of exams. Remember that they're not people, they're valuable assets and their owners need to protect their investment.

The pros I can believe, but the college medicals weren't thorough at all.

Not an expert, a reader. The pros, yes, a team of doctors examining and a team of staff watching, which might work for us, but would be overkill for others. I suspect, given what I've read, that at the college level, it would depend. A general student participating in a sport or someone in whom the university has made a financial investment of some sort, full scholarship to fills swim team. High school more focused than elementary school. Which was also true of wrestling weigh in rules.

For me, sports physicals in middle school were done by my regular family doctor, and I don't really remember much about them. But I'd guess that they were something less than a full physical but still covering the basics. I would say my high school sports physicals were fairly thorough, done in a big group with the other guys. I never play in college -- I just really wasn't that good. 😢

Not being involved in sports, my school physicals were indeed done by my family doctor who filled in a form supplied by the school. Basically, it was the 'back to school' physical done along with buying new shoes and jeans and back pack, etc.

In my case, the doctor was my father who basically just filled in the form. I only remember a few years that I actually got an exam.

Jds most sports physicals are per forma anyway. A more appropriate query would be sports "history" You can't imagine the number of times I have been pestered by parents or players to return a football hero to play when they've just had a head injury.

Nobody had head injuries in the 60s and 70s. That didn't happen 😉

In those days, it was considered almost funny to see a football player on the sidelines having somebody holding up three fingers and asking the player how many to see if he had a concussion. A broken leg or a torn ACL garnered subdued commentary about the injury to the player. A concussion on the other hand, it was like, ho-ho, he-he, he had his bell rung!

Amazing the paradigm shift these last few years.

I had sports physicals in junior high and high school that were always group physicals. They were all about same as far as thoroughness. We were all stripped to underpants, waited in lines for different checks, and always had to drop our underpants at the end for a hernia check and sometimes a testicular exam. I didn't play college sports, except for intramurals, but heard from friends that it was mostly the same for the scholarship athletes. To sign up for intramurals, we all had to provide a physical exam form signed by a doctor which meant a physical every year by our own doctor or at the student health center. About the same routine there too, except these weren't group physicals. A lot of 10 minute physicals.

I'm from Germany and I was examined during a school examination (in high school) with 2 classmates (Girls) together.

But was only an eye test, hearing test, lung listening, height & weight, coordination test & we had to do sports exercises

My school had an arrangement with a large university/medical school and they ran our school health office and did sports med services and did our sports physicals. Ours were pretty detailed in that they even included EKGs and respiratory tests (that thing where you blow into a tube and make the indicator go up). They were set up station-to-station with a different exam/test area for each part. Several stations in the gym and then last few were in the health office which was down the hall from there but along a semi-private corridor that could be closed off to others for the exams.

When you first arrived, you signed in and gave a urine sample. Then, you went to the fitness test section. After the fitness part, you went for the medical part. LOTS of waiting in between sections and stations and very big groups meant that these usually took a long time but kind of cool in hindsight.

My school had an arrangement with a large university/medical school and they ran our school health office and did sports med services and did our sports physicals. Ours were pretty detailed in that they even included EKGs and respiratory tests (that thing where you blow into a tube and make the indicator go up). They were set up station-to-station with a different exam/test area for each part. Several stations in the gym and then last few were in the health office which was down the hall from there but along a semi-private corridor that could be closed off to others for the exams.

When you first arrived, you signed in and gave a urine sample. Then, you went to the fitness test section. After the fitness part, you went for the medical part. LOTS of waiting in between sections and stations and very big groups meant that these usually took a long time but kind of cool in hindsight.

@JakeNewYork : Please do not misunderstand what I am about to comment. I do not know you and I am not assuming I know about your socieoeconomic status. I also grew up in the USA (I now reside in The UK) and that sounds like you had very comprehensive sports physicals. Mine were far more cursory. You were summoned to the nurse's office and it was over in about 10 minutes. I was from a working class family and my neighborhood access to fewer resources. It would seem to me (again I stress I am not assuming) those kids in wealthier communities had more comprehensive exams than those in the working class.

My school sports physicals were barely physicals at all. They just barely checked anything. There was no removal of clothing whatsoever never mind an EKG.

@JakeNewYork

Your Exam is similar with my Exam. The tests were aimed at the athletic performance of the students. Were there visual and hearing tests and reflexes in your exam Too ?

In college, I participated on the crew team. Our exams were provided in the trainer's office with a doctor that the school contracted to do the exams. The trainer's treatment room had a several beds for dealing with folks during the season. On exam day, the 9 of us were taken into the room, told to undress and sit down while the doc took us one at a time in front of the others and did a brief exam. Each of us had to be naked for hernia exam and genital exams; no rectal was done. That was always deferred for one's private doc.

I started playing competitive sports on my school teams at age 12 and continued throughout my high school years. The school district required a physical exam which was done by my regular pediatrician. The coaches distributed the exam forms to the players and we returned them after the doctor had completed them. It was a full body exam and included the genitalia and hernia but no anal or rectal. The one exception to this routine was my seventh grade year when a school board doctor came to the school and did the exams in one group. https://en.zity.biz/index.php?mx=blog;ox=showpage;pg=4516 Has my description of this experience.