Strip Completly during physical exam when younger?

My pediatrician (middle-aged male) typically did not take my underwear completely off, but rather he would just pull them down to my thighs at the end of the exam. This was the same every year to age sixteen. My mom was the only other person present for all of those exams. Only once when I was thirteen, when he was examining my recovery from a skin issue, did my underpants have to be completely off, I suppose because he was worried about scarring. Other than that exam, the only one that stands out in my mind was when I was fourteen, and he used an orchidometer to check the size of my testicles, since I was a late bloomer. The exam at sixteen was probably like most of the exams I had since I was very little, and the main reason it was different was that I finally had pubic hair. Once the pediatrician and my mom saw that, I finally got to start going to a regular GP from age seventeen onward.

Around 14 years old, an old doctor, completely naked at the beginning of the examination. The examination lasted about ten minutes.

This happened when I was 15 and just about to leave Secondary (High school). You have to go in front of the doctor and nurse in just your knickers (this applied to both sexes) and then you were auscultated, weighed etc. The final part was that you had to remove you knickers and they both literally looked you up and down and then the doctor did a skeletal exam by having you bend over and feel your spine and watch as you walked up and down.

I was about 14 when a panel of dermatologists - visiting specialists, all male - looked me over. I was one of their 'exhibits' that day! Although I was given a hospital-type gown, it did briefly come right off. Although at first I had my back turned to the row of doctors, I think they ended by asking me to turn and face them briefly (giving them a full-frontal view) before dismissing me. They were very nice about it!

- Ken

As a younger (under 10) patient, I recall being in underwear with the doctor pulling it down. Through my teens, my doctor had me in a paper gown. From my 20s on however, I was never asked to undress and really never had to expose anything.

There was just one instance recently when I went to a dermatologist that I pulled my pants down, but it was just for a moment.

Most of my doctors have been female after my 20s and male pediatricians before.

I was in China military exam once, they grouped us to 30, enter in a big room, was told strip completely, then line up, walk run and poses, still remember to this day one pose was to bend over, spread it so the doctor could exam the anus, then stand back so he checks out the genital. It was humiliating.

My high school girl friend did the girls exam, told me almost exact procedure, except of course the doctors all female. Still it quite a picture to paint.

We didn’t end up go to military but the exam made me interested in medfet ever since.

For our school exams at the age of 13,15 and 17,

we had to strip to underwear first for the general things with a nurse,

then enter in briefs so the cabinet of the doc,

at the end we had to lower our briefs then;

the doc was usually a rather young female,

no other person in the room no

In the area which I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s school medicals were very common. They were a big thing that everyone talked about and where dreaded because irrespective of which local school you went to, if you received the letter in a brown envelope from the school, it meant just one thing, you were going to have to strip completely naked for a school doctor. This must have been area specific as other people on here said they never received such an exam at school. This was probably why everyone made such a big thing about them. The letter used to arrive in the class register and handed out at registration. All your classmates then knew that without fail soon you were going to get your genitals examined.

My first experience of these was in infant school before anyone knew what the whole procedure was about. Many in my class (seemed to be quite random who) got the letter to take home requesting that we were to visits the school doctor with a parent.

On the day of the exams, during the morning members of my class were called and went out to see the doctor. By the time mine came around, none of use in class had managed to talk with each other and discuss what had happened. People just came back, sat down and got back on with their work.

Eventually the school secretary came and called my name out. I was escorted to the school reception area to meet my parent and then we sat waiting to be called in. As the school didn’t have a matron’s room, the medicals were being carried out in the school’s secretary’s office.

Time went by and eventually the secretary’s door opened expecting to be called in. Instead a middle-aged lady who was the doctor came out, left the door slightly ajar and went to another room down the corridor. You could just see into the room and it was clear another medical was still in progress. A girl from another year class could be seen sitting on the edge of a table and she was just wearing a vest and knickers. Looking back its scary the lack of privacy and respect that was given at the time. No way this way of working would be allowed in today’s world.

A few minutes later, the doctor came back, went in the room and continued. You could not here what was happening being the door.

Eventually, the door opened again, out walked the girl now fully dressed with one of her parents and I was called inside not knowing at all what was going to happen.

Once inside, I just looked randomly around while there were a few questions with my parent and a bit of form filling. I then had some basic checks done on my eyes, ears and throat while still in my school clothes. For some reason I thought we had finished but then the doctor turned to me and asked me to remove all my clothes including my underwear and get up on the exam table.

I can’t remember exact details, but I was very shocked and didn’t want to take any of my clothes off. Seeing what had happed when the door opened before had probably spooked me out. After what seemed liked ages I was told that the doctor had to see me with my pants down but it could be done standing up and not on the table.

Reluctantly, I unbuttoned by trousers and let them drop to the floor but didn’t take then off. I opened the front of my school shirt then nervously pulled by underpants down and let them drop to the floor with my trousers. Looking back, this was traumatic standing in front of a complete stranger in your school’s secretary’s office with your private parts on display.

The doctor then sat down on a wheeled stool and positioned herself right in front of me. She pushed my shirt further open and without saying anything else proceeded to give my genitals a thorough exam.

First, she felt around and under my testicles and then came the worse part as she moved to my penis. She started to pull my foreskin back and soon it became clear something was wrong. I was very tight, and as I looked down the doctor was manipulating my penis and she was pulling on my foreskin so a tiny part of my glans was protruding out of the end. This was so embarrassing, and I had no idea what was going on but it seemed like ages while the doctor stayed in front of me and kept feeling and looking at my penis.

Finally, i was told to get dressed and the medical was over. I returned to class very shocked at what had just happened. A few days later I had to endure the same experience again as the school doctor had arranged for me to see our own GP to look at me having a circumcision. This whole experience I had which was similar to many of my classmates certainly backed up why these things got the dreaded reputation.

Over the years it did seem that these school medicals in out area where very biased towards examination on the genitals and not much else. When we eventually moved to comprehensive school, although I didn’t get selected, some of my friends did. There was no actual checking of anything like eyes or ears etc, all they had to do was completely strip naked and stand in front of a doctor and nurse while they went through a check list .

@JP1

In the area which I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s school medicals were very common. They were a big thing that everyone talked about and where dreaded because irrespective of which local school you went to, if you received the letter in a brown envelope from the school, it meant just one thing, you were going to have to strip completely naked for a school doctor. This must have been area specific as other people on here said they never received such an exam at school. This was probably why everyone made such a big thing about them. The letter used to arrive in the class register and handed out at registration. All your classmates then knew that without fail soon you were going to get your genitals examined.

Very interested to read your excellent post about your childhood experiences in your area of the UK. As you point out many from the UK did not have anything like that to endure throughout their school years and I am a case in point which I have commented on in other posts elsewhere.

Not only did I not have a school doctor look at my genitals in my own experience, but having worked in secondary education from the early 1970's to the mid 2000's I did not hear of anything like that taking place in any of the establishments that I worked in either.

The only conclusion that I can draw is that it was very much a thing dependent upon the whim of a given local education authority and to be honest the last part you describe about the secondary age pupils having to stand naked for a visual inspection would have raised serious concern in places I was involved with, even back in the 1970's.

I posted something yesterday about the overzealous need to examine small and teenage boys genitals, basically from all of the stories I had read here. Totally uncalled for in my opinion and could have lasting psychological damage to those kids involved. There are several accounts of a boy going into see the doctor with a sore throat and getting his genitals fully examined, another with a sprained ankle with the same end result.

Doctor Jac

Interested to hear your comments on my post. Looking back it is amazing what the authorities used to get away with and what was normal at the time.

In my education authority the whole school medical thing seemed nothing more than en excuse for looking at your genitals.

They never did the cough test either, it just seemed to be focused on a detailed check of the foreskin as most of us were uncut.

On the positive side, as in my case they had the effect of picking up any boy who suffered with phimosis.

I was very lucky, despite the school doctor saying I definitely needed to be circumcised as my skin was so tight and our GP was to arrange a hospital visit, luckily the GP suggested trying stretching which ultimately worked.

Obviously a lot of these medicals took place so i wonder nowadays if more guys are suffering form a phimosis as this will no longer be diagnosed early now these medicals have been scrapped.

I distinctly remember doing an athletic physical in Jr high with about 80 other boys. We were all told to strip to our underwear. I was 11 at the time and still wore tighty whities. I remember feeling so embarrassed, standing there in that gym, going from exam station to exam station. The final piece of agony was the hernia check...performed by a doctor i knew from church. I remember giving everybody a cracked moon pulling my underwear down.. He didn't wear gloves....or wash his hands between checks. This was in the early 2000s. Embarrassing and gross. I resolved to wear looser fitting, boxers from then on.

@JP1

There is something very dubious about those local authorities that conducted examinations like the ones you describe. In some respects it was good that you had the tight foreskin situation highlighted, something I had never encountered previously, but obviously some young boys suffer from such a thing. I have commented in other discussions that my own which I do not believe was tight, but I had developed the horrible issue of smegma under the foreskin at about the age of 8 years.

Also it seemed very rare, if not none existent, that boys I was at school with were ever circumcised; not a common practice from my part of the world.

As I have commented previously the only school medical that I had a secondary level was one when the whole class both boys and girls, separately of course, had to change into the terrible school PE kit of faded navy blue and disgusting shorts with yellow rugby shirt. Then was across the school grounds through the cloakroom and line up outside the medical room.

When it was someones turn you went in the nurse, brusk horrible woman, went through your hair for nits; weighed you and height taken; then onto the doctor who did eyes; ears and mouth. That as it, and I would have remembered if anything had happened down below. It would have happened in what is now called Year 8. That was it.

My first and only real medical I ever had was at the instruction of my local authority as part of the criteria of gaining an educational grant for university, and that was when I was 19 years old. That was pretty average and reasonable but the elderly woman doctor never checked my genitals other than pulling out and slightly down my "Y" Fronts and putting a hand inside to do the cough test; I do not believe she even really looked but did it by feel.

I have been scarred for life as a result of not having a doctor look at my penis and scrotum/testicles while in the UK, Ha! Ha! All put to rights last year when my French doctor of dermatology checked them quickly during my first examination, and then far more thoroughly earlier this year.

In all seriousness I have grave misgivings about those authorities who commissioned all of the examinations of young boys where the doctors and nurses had free reign doing those examinations.

My doctors were pretty much male. After the nurse finished with me she told me to remove my undershirt, so when the doctor came in I was in underpants only. It stayed that way until the exam was almost complete and then I had to take them off so he could do the genital exam. One of my parents, usually my Dad, was with me in the room throughout high school.

I’ve never been fully undressed at the pediatrician or at a school physical. The closest to undressing was stripped to the waist. It was still embarrassing though.

1 time the doctor saw a skin rash so had me get fully naked

When I was a child, when I went to the pediatrician, you had to undress and keep only your underwear from the beginning of the medical examination. In the end they made you remove or lower your underpants for the penis and testicles exam.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I had to go to the doctor and they gave me a complete exam, with my underpants on, but there was a medical student, a woman, along with my regular doctor and the truth was that I was very ashamed when I took off underwear and expose my genitals.

From about 5 to 14 my sister and myself had to have an annual physical with a female doctor that was probably bordering on 60. As soon as you entered the room she made us both totally undress. She was a brilliant doctor but totally lacking in empathy and would ask my sister about her periods. We were lucky because we were very close and had no secrets, but I have often felt how more distant siblings would have felt talking about what at the time was a very intimate subject that even married couples could not talk to each other about.

I have never been fully undressed for a medical exam, either top off or trousers and pants off,my luck was never that good for the fully naked stuff

From about 5 to 14 my sister and myself had to have an annual physical with a female doctor that was probably bordering on 60. As soon as you entered the room she made us both totally undress. She was a brilliant doctor but totally lacking in empathy and would ask my sister about her periods. We were lucky because we were very close and had no secrets, but I have often felt how more distant siblings would have felt talking about what at the time was a very intimate subject that even married couples could not talk to each other about.

@Random_bi The doctor probably made the assumption that because your parents had you have your physicals together with your sister, that they were okay with the doctor asking all the questions that needed to be asked to either of you. To a lesser degree, the doctor may have been able to sense the closeness between you and your sister, validated by your sister not showing any awkwardness when asked certain questions.

I had to fully strip for examinations when i was 6, initially to vest and pants, then naked,

and for allergy testing at 21, though i was semi covered with a drape for that,

as has been the case for the majority of times in my life, with only a few exceptions, they were with female medics

No, as far as I remember. In elementary school I would go either in Aug or Sep for the exam. I normally was with my Mom until about 5th grade and then I would go in the room alone. The nurse would take weight, height, temp and blood pressure and then would tell me to "take everything off except your underwear" and the Dr. will see you shortly. Later in the exam he would ask me to lower my underwear to do the genital check.

In 8th grade I switched Dr.'s and he just lowered my underwear during the exam.

@JTMac

If it happen yesterday I would totally agreed with you as we live in a more enlighten society, but back then I never knew any woman that did not go to her wedding bed a virgin. I am not familiar with what it was like in the States then, but here no one ever spoke about periods, my sister only learnt about them when our mother gave her a book about them which by then was a bit late unlike her. It was a few months into our marriage when our love making coincided with her period did she even speak about them.

For the majority of my youth exams I was stripped to my underwear and socks, no gown, and my doctor just pulled down the front of my underwear when necessary. My mom was present during my exams until I was 16, which is when things changed. I was stripped to my underwear, no socks (nurse told me to remove them), and sometimes offered a gown. My doctor instructed me to pull down my underwear while standing, and this is how my exams went until I transferred out of my pediatrician’s office when I started college.

I remember in late teens being examined by an older female doctor. I was told to go behind a screen and remove everything except my underpants. I remember standing in front of the doctor and two others in briefs black and red stripe men’s briefs. At the end of the exam she briefly pulled them partially down but it wasn’t a full genital exam.

When I was about approximately 7 or 8 years old during my visit to his office. From the start of the visit , in the exam room, the nurse removed all of my cloths. I was not given a gown. My doctor, male older would start at my eyes and slowly examine me all the way down my nude body. after listening to my heart and lungs with his cold stethoscope, he would move it down to my belly. Moving both sides to just above my penis. When he started examining my belly area he made me spread my legs wider, exposing my penis and scrotum clearly for all to see. With out telling me he would check my scrotum and penis then do 2 hernia exams. He did have cold hands. I was embarrassed and afraid. He I and the nurse were all in the room together with my dad in the waiting room for most of the examination.

On the day that I was admitted to the hospital. My dad brought me there. Forms were filled out, by my dad.

I was young about 5 years old. After the forms were filled out I was taken to an examination room alone with two nurses. Inside the room they started taking all my clothes off. My dad provided the hospital with my pajamas which one of the nurses had with her. Once I was down to my small underpants. One of the nurses picked my up laid me on an examination table. They pulled my underpants all the way off. A doctor walked in put his scope on and started checking my ears, eyes. and throat. He made me gag on the depressor. He then placed the cold stethoscope on my chest, moving it around. He asked one of the nurses to spread my legs wide. his scope went lower to my belly and below. Then he felt my belly probing all over. The Doctor then started examining my penis and balls. Then down my legs. The nurses were still in the room watching. I was allowed to sit up and his scope went from the top of my back to my back side. He was listening intently. At this point I was picked up and placed on the floor. The nurses now weighed me and took my height. My nude body was on display for all to see standing up. The doctor came over picked me up and placed me on my belly. One of the nurses opened my buttocks and slid a thermometer inside. The Thermometer was removed and my butt was wiped. I was turned on my back and the doctor reappeared with a young girl assistant. My legs again were spread wide. The doctor and assistant started examining my penis and balls. Two hernia checks were done. One of the nurses stayed in the room with us. After the doctor did his part of the hernia check it was the girls turn. She started probing and feeling my belly. Then with help from the nurse holding my legs open. she forced the left side ball upward, smiling. Then moved my penis and took the right side pushed that upward.. She then felt me up. and was examining my belly. After all was complete The doctor and assistant left the room. Another nurse came in with my pajamas. One of the nurses gave me a cup to pee in. I was asked to pee right there and then. After that I was allowed to put my pajamas on and I was escorted to my hospital room with my dad.

This was in the early 2000s, for reference. The pediatrician I visited from birth through age 6 was an older woman (probably in her 60s), and my brother (who's 3 years my senior) and I (female) would get our yearly check-ups together.

At the beginning, the doctor would tell us to both get undressed. It was the same every year, but the exam was so sexually exciting that every time, I asked my mom to ask the doctor if I should take off my underwear or if I could keep it on. I knew I wasn't going to be told to remove my underwear, but I wanted to so badly that I asked every year just in case.

We had a choice of who went first, but I was too shy, so my brother was always examined first. As a result, I had to spend the first 10 or 20 minutes naked except for my underwear. I was so embarrassed about being so exposed that I kept trying to fold my arms to cover my chest and also trying to hide between my mother's legs to conceal my nudity.

After the doctor examined most of my brother's body, she would pull his underwear--not pulled below his butt, just pulled down in the front--to just under his testicles, and she touched/examined his penis and testicles while he was laying on his back for a minute or so.

Then it was my turn. As with my brother, the doctor examined most of my body and then had me lay down on my back on the table covered in crinkly white paper. She had my lift my bottom up and slid my (winnie the pooh, one year) underwear down to around my ankles. She told me to bend my legs and then pushed them apart so I was spread eagle and my genitals were exposed. I guess the rest is a story for another time, but to fastforward to the next relevant part, she would help me pull my underwear back up and then I could get dressed.

So long story short, I started clothed, undressed down to underwear, and then my underwear was removed for the genital exam only.

In my youth with the pediatrician, I would be told to strip to my underwear by the intake nurse (rather sternly as I recall) No gown was ever offered or provided. I don't think modesty applied to youth in those days (80's thru early 90's) I never remember having to remove my underwear during those years. The doctor (who was an older male) would simply lift the waistband of my underwear forward for a genital check after the abdominal exam. This process never changed during the period I was still going to the pediatrician. My mother would be present during my preteen years.

@JP1 Do you know if the girl kept her knickers throughout the exam?

@JP1 Do you know if the girl kept her knickers throughout the exam?

I don't think any of the girls who had medicals at my school had to take their knickers off at any point. It was just the boys who got the genital exams