Pupils Brave Health Screening : Exams Are a First for 80% of Children

At 10 years old, Reyna Roa had her first physical examination from a doctor on Wednesday.

Reyna, a fifth-grader at Grant Elementary School, watched carefully as a nurse pricked her finger to draw a blood sample. Then she waited patiently with other children in the school’s music room until a doctor with a stethoscope asked each one to breathe deeply, open their mouths and say “ah.”

Some of the children cried. Others looked nervous and hesitant about what was to come, because, like Reyna, many of the students at the Walnut Street school had never been to a doctor before. But Reyna remained unfazed.

“I wasn’t afraid because I have seen this on television,” said Reyna, who wore a hot pink vest and white jeans ensemble. “Except for the chickenpox, I have never been sick enough to go to a doctor’s, though my mother has.”

Instead of being intimidated by the experience, Reyna said after her examination that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

More than 40 first- and fifth-graders at the Santa Ana school participated in the pilot health-screening program to pinpoint basic health problems of elementary students in the predominantly low-income area.

District officials estimate that many families in the school’s area have no insurance and that 80% of the children have never been seen by a physician.

“A sick child isn’t going to perform his or her best,” said Lucinda Hundley, Santa Ana Unified’s director of special education and health services. “And many times we are not even aware that a child has any particular thing wrong with them.”

The Orange County chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics raised more than $36,000 to launch the pilot program in conjunction with the Santa Ana Unified School District.

“What we are striving for is that by starting with these kids at an early age we can introduce them and possibly their families to the world of medicine and prevent many health conditions from turning into something much more serious,” said David Lang, pediatrician and chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Orange. Lang said that first-graders were targeted because they had just entered the school system and possibly had not had a previous physical examination, while fifth-graders were chosen because they are about to enter the adolescent stage.

School nurses, volunteer nurses from Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) and three pediatricians conducted the 15-minute routine checkups.

The doctors also tested for tuberculosis.

“We still see a significant amount of TB cases today,” said Dr. Paul Qaqundah, a Huntington Beach pediatrician. “A few years back there were a number of cases in this area so we are very interested in seeing exactly what the results of those tests will be.”