Embarrassing Pediatrician Visits As A Teenager Or Young Adult

Growing up in the northeastern United States, it seemed fairly common to visit the pediatrician until graduating high school or later. Patient modesty seemed to be an inconsequentiality. The scale was located near the nurses' station and patients of both genders were weighed there clad in just their underwear. Female patients with developed breasts were allowed to wear a tee shirt or tank top. The exam rooms were positioned in a horseshoe configuration and you could often catch a glimpse of other patients in various states of undress as you were led to the designated exam room. Patients were not offered an exam gown and were required to sit on the exam table wearing nothing but their underwear until the doctor arrived. You were always examined thoroughly regardless of the reason for your visit. This practice became increasingly vexatious as I matured. Would others please share their personal experiences regarding embarrassing examinations at the pediatrician.

Most embarrassing for me was having to drop trousers, pull down pants and bend over a receptionist's lap for her to watch me get injections (penicillin when ill and booster shots when I wasn't) in my vulnerable bare bottom.

I can absolutely confirm what sensei1980 wrote, but have to remark, that I am from middle of Germany and had experienced the same very often and regularly (nearly quarterly) during my teenaged time, too, because I had more serious abdominal problems. I´ve been examined in an office of two paediatricians and usually I had to undress completely everything at the beginning and had to stay completely naked during the whole exams. Equally who of the both doctors examined me, he always examined completely everything from head to feet, normally by starting with a full body and skin inspection (because I´m so full of dysplastic moles and nevi everywhere). The longest and clearly most intense and thorough part was always the abdominal exam including the very intense exam and palpation of my outie bellybutton (navel hernia check), and I often was nausea during and mostly afterwards. The most embarrassing thing was when I couldn´t hold it and got a vomiting sensation, what happened few times. The doctor called then for a nurse at the reception to bring a vomiting bowl and all people in the waiting room knew it then.

Usually I got laboratory exams, ecg, either, and sometimes x-rays in other rooms, for which I was taken by a nurse only in my pants directly through the waiting area (!) to the opposite part of the office. And before I was brought back to the exam room then, I had to wait in the waiting area (like I was) again. And the waiting area was directly near the reception at the entrance, on the other site was an open preparing area with scale and the tapeline directly infront of the exam rooms, so you could often catch a glimpse of other patients or other patients of me inside the exam room from the waiting area. It was often very embarrassing for me!

I also grew up in the NE USA: The densely populated Northeast Corridor as us transportation people call it. Not every doctor's office is the same but overall the description you had given was highly accurate. From what I remember my doctor's office seemed a little bigger and each exam room had a scale. There was little regard for modesty at all. It was just something you had to accept.

There is now a campaign to increase the awareness of patient modesty. I know there are people very open and happy to be exposed and displayed, however they are some of us in the real world who when we are at a real Dr.s Office need our privacy and the privacy and respect for our sons daughters etc.

www.patientmodesty.org

Its quite interesting, especially the section on unnecessary school physicals for boys.

www.patientmodesty.org

From what I've read the site does seem to assume far more prudishness on the part of the general public than I think really exists ... and if I were in an uncharitable mood, and after reading some of their pages I am, I might even say they are pushing to increase calls for modesty and prudishness on the part of patients. It seems like they'd like nothing better ... I'd wonder what their ulterior motives really were ...

I have seen that site too. But to clarify, what do you suggest might be their ulterior motive?

Well its clear that from the site, that there have been too may instances where the interests of the patient are clearly disregarded, I have experienced it too. Just please keep in mind we are consumers of the medical system here in the US, and are paying for it. In the UK the guideline towards patients in the examination room, is always covered by the mnemonic, ICE, Inform, Consent and Examine, not the situations for which we have read in some posts, where its all been about the physicians needs and not the comfort and care of the patient/consumer/customer. In most of the cases on that site too never once was saving life and limb the issue.

I was always examined in private at the Pediatricians Office. There was no public exposure during weighing or walking about in halls partially clothed. The Pediatrician had an upscale suburban practice and it was not like a large clinic or corporate run office of Doctors. Boys stripped to shorts for the Doctor in the Exam Room and as the Exam progressed he pulled the boys shorts to knees on exam table. I seldom noticed any girls in the waiting room in all the years I went to that Pediatrician. Now as I reflect back on it I wonder why.

I have seen that site too. But to clarify, what do you suggest might be their ulterior motive?

Possibly trying to change medical protocols when undressing is involved. For instance one thing I read on this site was someone complaining they had been totally undressed while under anesthesia during an operation ...

We've discussed this part of operating protocol quite extensively on other threads here. I don't see any reason why changes should be made. There were valid medical and practical reasons for the present way operations are conducted concerning clothing, lack of ...

Another thing that struck my notice was of female patients complaining of being treated by male doctors. Of course everyone may have feelings and preferences about the gender of a treating physician. But it sounds a bit too close to similar complaints in countries like Belgium and France that were based on religious grounds, about husbands vehemently opposing their wives being treated by male doctors ... in the cases here it was about some religiously motivated Muslims taking that position about the necessary modesty required for females.

This particular site doesn't seem to have anything to do with Islam of course, but many denominations do take similar views on modesty and nudity.

And complaining about female modesty in particular always rings a little warning bell about not really believing in gender equality.

So, there were a few things that sort of crossed my radar warning array ... though maybe I'm just in a bit of a suspicious frame of mind today ...

I was born and raised in upstate New York and moved to Florida when I was 18 years old. As you described above is exactly the protocol for an exam in the pediatricians office back in the 1970's and 80's. I'm not sure what happens now, but back then we had to undress to our undies and wait for the doctor to come in for the exam.

This is a 100% accurate description of going to the pediatrician in New England growing up in the '60's and '70's. However, it never got "vexatious." We were taught to do as the doctors and nurses told us, especially when very young and Mom would be in the room.

Basically, we were conditioned that the doctor had to do certain things, and that clothing would be in the way. Fortunately for us, my pediatrician was a good and honorable man, and never abused his authority. Looking back, I can see how someone less scrupulous could take advantage of that.

At age 15, I got a chest infection and my mom called my pediatrician. He told her I was getting too old to see him and gave her the name of a GP he highly approved of. That's when I started seeing a GP for illnesses. At 16 I could drive and drove to my own Dr. appts. alone. I felt a lot more grown up that my Dr. no longer referred to my mother as "mommy" and talked baby talk to me.

Your doctor may have been ill educated or maybe just did not want to deal with a teenager. These days most physicians who go into Pediatrics or FP often study a curriculum of Adolescent Medicine. Either way it was probably best that you moved on.

I don't remember a doctor's office where as a kid I had to be weighed in just my underpants on a scale in the hallway where girls and boys were. Most of the scales that I remember were in the exam rooms and not in the hallways so the nurse would have me strip to my underpants and weigh me in the room. Same with sports physicals at school. Scales in the gym but not in a hallway with everyone walking past. Strip weight was a big deal for wrestling weigh-ins but not for sports physicals where we got to keep our underpants on to be weighed.

In some military clinics when I was a kid, there could be a large exam area for boys. Which meant that unless I was in one of the single exam rooms at those clinics, I would be out in the open area with other boys and their parents where there would be several exam tables and everyone could see everyone else getting examined and treated. There would be one scale for the use of the boys and every kid was in his underwear in the big exam area unless he was being treated for something that didn't require him to be undressed. The girls had a separate exam and treatment area but I don't know whether they had a large exam room like the boys did or whether they only had private exam rooms. Boys and girls had the same waiting area but went in separate doors from the reception desk for their doctor visits. Probably a double standard but not one that i thought about as a kid.

Lots of kids I grew up with went to the same doctors office. Fortunately there were never any incidents like some people describe here.

But what fascinated me as a teen was fantasizing about seeing the cute girls I knew be examined by the doctor, wishing I could observe it, see them naked, etc.

Since my own exams were very thorough, I used to wonder if these pretty classmates of mine would lie facedown like me on that same exam table, bottoms bared and cheeks spread. These thoughts fueled my earliest masturbations.

Actually, I also grew up in Northeastern US, and yes, it was always white briefs and no gown and it never bothered me. I mean, i'm covered, right?

Although, I was always taken to our family doctor. Never really had a pediatrician.

But I will say this: I have an 11 year old, & HE has a pediatrician that he's had since he was born. She is so adorable, I would so bang her. And that's a testament of me trying to get the hottest doc I could for my son, that one day, he may be thankful for, but let's see.

He's now getting to that age where he might very well start becoming uncomfortable and awkward having annual exams. I always had a male doctor when I was a kid, and felt "hey we're guys, it's cool". But now my son's growing up with a lady pediatrician seeing him, and I wonder how he will look back on that in years to come. Hopefully, he will feel I have done right by him. I want the sentiment to be "My dad got me a very nice doc and a hot doc, as opposed to what I could have had". I want to be appreciated for doing the best I could for him in my own convoluted way.

But these next few years will be interesting as he hits puberty, what his sentiments might turn out to be.....

Unlike most of y'all, I grew up in North Texas. My mother probably took me to a pediatrician as an infant or toddler. Around the time I was 3 or 4, a small clinic was built on the block behind our house. After it opened, I always went to one of the family practice docs at the neighborhood clinic. If meds were needed, there was a pharmacy next door. So as far back as I can remember I went to docs who saw and treated all ages, kids to geriatric. The scale was in the hallway leading to the exam rooms. But there was a swinging door between the lobby and the scale, so nobody saw you getting weighed.

I don't recall ever having to get undressed to wait on the doc. If a shot in the butt was needed, pants had to come down at the appropriate time. But I was never aware of being exposed to others. So my experience was quite different from those of you who grew up in the Northeast states.

I want the sentiment to be "My dad got me a very nice doc and a hot doc, as opposed to what I could have had". I want to be appreciated for doing the best I could for him in my own convoluted way.

When I was growing there were hardly any lady doctors, so I always went to a male doctor. Frankly though, I could never conceive of there being any sort of relationship/appreciation/special consideration on my part for any of those doctors, none at all. They were just people I had to see from time to time because my parents made me. I don't think I even considered them to just be doing their job for my welfare. They were just another annoying presence in my childhood, one of many annoying presences like teachers and nuns and priests and what have you. It often seemed like their mere existence was simply to make me wish they didn't exist ...

They were one of the many unavoidable and bothersome facts of childhood. Something to be forgotten as quickly as possible and seen as little as possible.

Only much much much later in life do you come to understand their worth.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and my pediatrician was a older man who probably trained in the 50s. I think many people of that era just had a fundamentally different attitude toward children than most of us do. Either they assumed that children didn't have feelings, or maybe they knew that children had feelings but didn't think it was important to pay attention to them. Also, they assumed that boys had no sense of modesty around other men. My doctor was pretty callous by today's standard, but he might have been the norm for his day.

What stands out now is that he didn't knock when he entered the room. After the nurse took vitals, she would leave, and I would wait my turn in his busy office. Footsteps would go back and forth. I could usually pick out the sound of the doctor's male dress shoes and could tell when they stopped at my door. He'd take the chart out of its holder, read it for a few seconds, then open the door without knocking.

At least there was no nudity in the halls. The scale was in the exam room. He generally had me take my shirt off and leave pants on for checkups. But he did pull down my pants several times with no warning at all. Once he announced his intentions by saying that he was going to check me for a "rupture," which I had no idea what he was talking about. He didn't wear gloves, either. Maybe that wasn't standard procedure yet.

Your experience sounds like mine in the 50s and 60s. My doctor had a small clinic with his office and day clinic in one wing and a small hospital wing. The day clinic was like a large room with several curtained exam areas. There was a nurses station on one end and a door on the other which opened to the eating room. We were weighed st the nurses station wearing just underwear. Routine vaccinations were also given at the nurses station so it wasn't uncommon to to be bent over for a shot with underpants around your knees while other patients were going to and from an exam area.

In the exam area the curtain wasn't always closed properly and people could see you laying there naked while the doctor examined you.

I also grew up in the 70's and 80's and I have to agree going to a doctor or pediatrician was much different then today. I think what doctors did and got away with back them, most would have been arrested and there medical license would have been revoked.

My pediatrician would do the same, he would never knock, just walk into the room and I would hear the footsteps as well. He would get closer and I would here him remove the clip board from the side of the door and just walk into the room. There was NO modesty at all in my pediatricians office and he never wore latex/rubber gloves, the only time a rubber/latex glove was used is when he inserted his finger into my rectum to check my prostrate and that he only wore a finger rubber/latex protector....it was just a rubber/latex that he rolled onto his pointer finger and he used that finger to lube and insert into my anus and felt around and rubbed my prostrate.

Yes! Times were different then........

I grew up in the midwest in the 90's and I must say my pediatrician exams were VERY similar to DrAceLittle. I also got to keep some clothes on, but it was very violating when the old fashioned dr would pull open my pants without warning. In some ways even more violating and embarrassing than having to strip down from the start.

Communication goes a very long way in preventing issues like this. As a child, I received genital exams almost the same way. I was mostly dressed, the doctor opened up my pants and lowered my underwear himself, and would feel my genitals without gloves. However, he always preceded the genital exam by telling me he was going to check out my privates so I was never caught off guard.

I think that as a teen, the experience was always embarrassing regardless of how the doctor addressed the examination. Whether gowned or allowed to remain in bra and panties, the process inevitably required a removal of my underwear. While it helped to realize this, it was and remains part of every exam ever since!

Also from the north east and remembering back as a child and teen the scale always seemed to be in the exam room and I never needed to go out of it in anything less than my dress clothes. Also remember going to see the doc when I was maybe an 8 year old in just my PJs early one morning but dont remember being embarrassed at all by it. Back in my day if Mom said "this is how we are going", thats how you went, end of discussion, period.

Back when I got my license and had a summer job I recall my mom telling me the doctor needs to update my shots and sign off on some paperwork for the job I had. She told me to drive myself there and I remember thinking I had gotten myself lost on the way there. But I kept on driving, and then bypassed the office. The doctors office was upstairs, The hallway door opened into a large waiting room area. Half of it was a play room with all sorts of toys and games. The nurses station, behind glass upper walls was in the middle of this office. Beyond that desk area, on the right was a toilet and sink in a small closet like room. Just outside this room was the scale. Down the hall to the left was two rows of exam rooms and offices for the doctors. They had those color coded flags outside the rooms.

I was called in to the exam room and thought it was odd they did not take my weight or ask me to pee in a Dixie cup. The nurse went over my shots I was to get and told me to strip down to my shorts. I had no issue doing so, except she seemed to stay in the room while I undressed. She turned and checked I had followed instructions and left the room. About a minute later the doc walks in and comments how old I have gotten so quickly. He confirms my shots and asked why I had pee'd in a cup yet. I told him no I had not. He opens the door and points straight down the hallway and says to grab a cup from the nurses station and pee, then come back. It was a trip I had made many times before however this was the first time I was doing it alone. All the others times I had been escorted by a nurse. This time it seemed like I was being a bit naughty and sneeking to the bathroom in my tighty whiteys.

The nurses station made me come around to the front of the desk and grab a cup. I was then in view of a mom and daughter in the waiting room. The mom was reading a magazine and the girl was reading a school book, in the summer time, nerd! I went into the room and peed. When I turned to come out it seemed like I had to make a dash for the cover of the nurses station and almost took off running past the eyes in the waiting room. A nurse haulted me very quickly and took the Dixie cup from me. She instructed me to go nowhere. Up on the scale to check my weight and height. I stood there, for seemed like hours while the nurse fudged with that metal sliding stick to get my true height. She asked me to stand up straight, arms to the side..... The whole time the mom and daughter stared like deer in the headlights. I calmly stepped down and strolled back to the exam room.

Doc asked me about my job and what hours I would be required to work. He asked if I had any problems or concerns and then did a quick head, neck, throat eyes, ears, heart and lungs check on me. I thought he was going a bit fast. He then asked me to step out of my shorts, as I did I looked out the open exam room door as the mom and daughter were being escorted to an exam room further down the hall. The nurse stepped in and closed the door over. The mom shielded her daughters eyes form my direction. The doc did the hernia exam and told me to get dressed. He got up and left the room, door open. I recall thinking at that time it did not matter who saw me in that office. I was going to take my time getting dressed. The nurse came in and gave me my shots before I could get my shirt on. One of them went in my butt. ;-)

It was most embarrassing to have be nude and have my pussy spread open to be looked at by the pediatrician.

We went to the same pediatrician for years when I was younger, ages 5-11. Then we moved away for about 5 yrs and came back to the same town. My mom scheduled me for a back to school checkup. Of course this time I was sixteen years old and well into puberty. Our doctor was a fairly attractive female, very friendly and knew our family well. It was embarrassing and a huge turn on to be examined by her now that I had developed into a man. When she examined my penis and testicles she said out loud that she hadn't seen me in a while. She smiled really big and grabbed my cock. Nice.

Juliebaby,

Your pediatrician opened up your pussy...?