Topic: Should Parents Be Prepped to Leave the Exam Room During Their Teen’s Appointment

[Pandora]

It is relatively common for pediatricians to at some point ask the parent to leave the exam room during a medical visit, usually once the child becomes a teenager.

This can be for more private parts of a physical exam and/or discussion of sensitive topics that the child might feel embarrassed to have a parent present.

Recently, Dr. Cora C. Breuner with the Seattle Children’s Hospital spoke at a conference sponsored by the North Pacific Pediatric Society as an expert helping physicians learn to prepare parents to leave the exam room. Pediatric News, and other websites for medical professionals, picked up the story in which Breuner suggests physicians begin preparing parents when their child is between the ages eight and 10. This way, when the time comes years down the road, they won’t resist leaving the room:

    She tells parents, “I really need to be your child’s physician, and it’s really important that I have a rapport with him or her. I need the child to trust me, and I need you to trust me,” she said at a conference sponsored by the North Pacific Pediatric Society.

    “I need you to trust that I’m going to tell you if there’s a serious medical problem that is uncovered when your child talks with me. I will bring you in on that. Sometimes kids tell me stuff as a provider that they might not necessarily share with you,” said Dr. Breuner, professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle.

To build a trusted relationship with the patient, Breuner has another line: ”Everything you say is between you and me unless you say you hurt yourself or someone else, or someone is hurting you physically or sexually.”

Breuner reportedly uses these lines in every session with patients at these younger ages so everyone is comfortable with what’s to come. Most notably, the more uncomfortable situations in which Breuner and other pediatricians have to mitigate in the parent-patient-physician relationship are those of a sexual nature.

Er, NO.  That, imo, is between the kid and the parent to discuss and decide, not the friggin doctor.

[IronDioPriest]

Most people will go along with this, just as they go along with answering questions about firearms in the home that wind up on a kid's medical record. It won't occur to people that this is even in play. Rather than having a conversation with their kid ahead of time, setting the boundaries for who is allowed to do what when and where, they'll just be caught in the moment, and do what the doctor says.

Thus, they will not have in their arsenal, "Thank you for your concern, but Sonny and I have had a conversation about this, and we've both agreed that anything you and he would discuss is to be discussed in front of me as Sonny's father. I am involved in all his medical decisions, and personal matters are family business."

[LadyVirginia]

No, is right , Pan.

I've been at the pediatrician's office and seen the parents dutifully exit the room when told to.

Well, my kids only go to the doc when sick so no one ever says anything about me staying in the room.

Another benefit of homeschooling--no annual school physicals   


( I swear even as an adult you go to the doctor and the first thing they want to discuss is your sex life!)

[EW1(SG)]

I was born with a birth defect that asserted itself when I was a teenager, old enough to drive.  The defect required surgery in my scrotum to repair, and was extremely painful.

Somewhat like getting gored between the legs by the Bulls of Pamplona.  All of them.

My mother was there with me the whole time.  It never occurred to either of us that she should leave the room at any time.

Perhaps our clinical experience influenced our relationship when ill, but the fact is, I was horribly sick, and me and my mom both wanted to make sure I got taken well taken of.

Girls that age are generally a little more concerned with their modesty, but it should be something that the child and the parent decide, not the doctor.

[LadyVirginia]

My adult daughters still ask me to go with them.  My oldest had to meet with a surgeon prior to the surgery and I could tell he was a bit surprised I accompanied her.  But she was stressed out about the whole thing and needed me to be there to hear everything and ask questions that she forgot.  The follow up after the surgery she did go alone but of course she was no longer stressed out and was healing well.

Going to the doctor either ill or well often makes you feel vulnerable either as a child or adult.  I really believe in having another person with you in those situations to act as an advocate.  I've seen people who take no BS from anyone turn into a quiet little mouse agreeing to any and everything the doctor says. 

When I was a kid the doctor never asked my mom to leave the room. This is a push to separate the kids from the parents and get them to rely on the doctors.

[Pandora]

My adult daughters still ask me to go with them.  My oldest had to meet with a surgeon prior to the surgery and I could tell he was a bit surprised I accompanied her.  But she was stressed out about the whole thing and needed me to be there to hear everything and ask questions that she forgot.  The follow up after the surgery she did go alone but of course she was no longer stressed out and was healing well.

My mother accompanied me to the doctor (she usually took me there) until I moved out at 19, and there were times after that I wished I'd had her with me.

Going to the doctor either ill or well often makes you feel vulnerable either as a child or adult.  I really believe in having another person with you in those situations to act as an advocate.  I've seen people who take no BS from anyone turn into a quiet little mouse agreeing to any and everything the doctor says.

Depending on how ill one is, sometimes there's not enough strength to be assertive. 

When I was a kid the doctor never asked my mom to leave the room. This is a push to separate the kids from the parents and get them to rely on the doctors.

I agree.  Too much of our culture now does just that.

[LadyVirginia]

When I was a kid the doctor never asked my mom to leave the room. This is a push to separate the kids from the parents and get them to rely on the doctors.

I agree.  Too much of our culture now does just that.

May I suggest that it is derived from the whole myth that abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor? Not the woman and the father or the girl and her parents? Now sex information is to be a discussion between a child and the doctor. Not the child and the parent. Some person who as "nice" as he/she can be but is not ultimately responsible for the long term care or consequences of that care is supposed to have free reign to discuss a subject that is not a simple medical issue but something that is or can be tied to the family's values?

Not happening in this family.

[Pandora]

When I was a kid the doctor never asked my mom to leave the room. This is a push to separate the kids from the parents and get them to rely on the doctors.

I agree.  Too much of our culture now does just that.

May I suggest that it is derived from the whole myth that abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor? Not the woman and the father or the girl and her parents? Now sex information is to be a discussion between a child and the doctor. Not the child and the parent. Some person who as "nice" as he/she can be but is not ultimately responsible for the long term care or consequences of that care is supposed to have free reign to discuss a subject that is not a simple medical issue but something that is or can be tied to the family's values?

Not happening in this family.

One of the reasons I believe that "the culture" would rather see you at work and your kids in government schools; it's to obstruct you passing on your values.

[LadyVirginia]

One of the reasons I believe that "the culture" would rather see you at work and your kids in government schools; it's to obstruct you passing on your values.

Which is why I cringe when ever I hear a politician, school personnel and even parents advocating for kids to spend more days and hours at school so they can learn "more".

That kind of learning we can do without.

[Alphabet Soup]

After Random came to live with me I made sure that she made it to every appointment and even encouraged her to seek out help with counselors, etc. Never would they allow me to go anywhere near the patient room with her. Never did they share with me their suspicions, diagnosis's, treatment plans, or sh!t.

I'd give my right arm for the opportunity to meet the fvcker who dreamed up HIPPA. I'd gut him like a fish.

[IronDioPriest]

I'd give my right arm for the opportunity to meet the fvcker who dreamed up HIPPA. I'd gut him like a fish.

It really is a travesty against the parent-child relationship and parental authority.