Serious Concerns About Abuse by Pediatrician

[magickmarck]

Hi all. I hope this post is in the right spot and appropriate to make. I have been trying to unpack my childhood and determine if any sexual abuse occurred. For now, I just need to see if the following is normal.
My pediatrician did checkups every so often. Always, after checking my ears and stuff, he would put his hand down my pants and feel on my penis and balls. Maybe ten seconds? I assumed it was typical and I still figure it is. But I also feel odd enough about it to ask. Did your doctor do this?
Thanks everyone.
Marck

 

[Epticide]

How often did this occur? At what age? Were they physicals, or just regular checkups? It's hard to know with the little information provided if this was a normal 'checkup', or abuse as you mentioned. Either way, I'd recommend speaking to a therapist or something of the sort, because as you said, all of these years later it's still something you are concerned about.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Fiori di Bella]

My father-in-law was a pediatrician and I worked at his office as a scribe, which involves writing down all the details of a visit, including the complaint, symptoms, the scope of exam and a plan for treatment, rx and diagnostic tests, if needed. I was in every patient room with him all day.
Occasionally he would have to touch a boy’s balls, to see if either of them was non-descended or if the boy had a retractile testis. Other times that boy’s private parts were palpated were with hypospadias (the urethral opening is somewhere other than at the end of the penis) or in cases of penile curvature. There is a condition called hidden penis that can affect boys but you would be well aware, if not then, but certainly now, if you’d ever had this, so I doubt that was cause for such an exam. Lastly, I would think a pediatrician that briefly touched a boy’s parts at each check up must have a suspicion that things are concerning, from an anatomical standpoint. There are a multitude of urogenital disorders and without seeing your chart it would be hard to know what he was looking for.