Mirth, Medicine and the Military

Pre-induction Physical: The pre-induction examination center was in central Philadelphia and looked like it was a converted warehouse built in the early 19th century. The floors were wood and were sagging and irregular from the yearly coats of green paint applied for what seemed like the past 150 years. The rolling hills in the floor reminded me of moguls on a ski slope. The walls were painted cinder blocks. I was fearful that I could get lead poisoning just breathing in the air. The lighting looked like it had only recently replaced gas lightening. It had air conditioning -through the cracks in the windows and doors. The wind draft in December was straight from the Artic Circle. This was my first exposure, literal and figuratively, to production line medicine. We were ‘examined’ by military medics who literally just waved their Artic-chilled stethoscopes over your chest, heart and abdomen and walked down a bench where every sitting inductee was entitled to a single tap on each knee with the rubber hammer. When examining ears, I know they didn’t bother to change the disposable speculum for the otoscope. Whether this was because of sheer laziness or because of some severe military austerity program, I never learned. If you weren’t sick when you entered you had a good chance of being sick by the time that you left. The physical examination went without incident until we were ordered to form six equal lines "buck-naked" and asked to “bend over and spread your cheeks". And I don’t mean you’re cheeks on your face. There were probably about 50 men in 3 lines of 15 plus in each line. Fortunately, I was first in line of the first line. Was this in deference to my being a physician? I doubt it- probably just lucky happenstance. The room temperature was probably 55 degrees. If the medics had chosen to actually examine the line of naked inductees, they would have rejected the entire lot because of chilblains(frostbite) and cyanotic (icy blue) extremities. “The examining "physician" walked the line doing the sequential rectal exams. I was in the first row- they wouldn’t let us turn around and look. I think the Army must have run out of lubricant – or they chose only examiners with fat fingers. Other than the humbling and demeaning experience of it all, my major question was whether or not the medics bothered to change gloves with each examination? Or worse- in that they may not have bothered to use a gloves at all!