First, let me apologize for the blog regarding back-to-school physicals being a little late this month. Like many Central Minnesotans, I’m in denial that school begins in 2 weeks and the season is changing. I am enjoying the final days of summer and the weather we are having.
Second, I’d like to clarify why back to school physicals are important for your child or adolescent. These visits are a key opportunity to ensure your child is physically and mentally healthy before going back to school.
At North Star Family Medicine, we understand there is a current misbelief that back to school/sports physicals are only completed to “push immunizations on children to make more money for big pharma and clinics.” While we do address immunizations during the visit, the providers at North Star Family Medicine complete a history and examination to discuss many other important health concerns.
Here are a few examples of what is completed during an exam:
- Vision and hearing screenings to identify undiagnosed problems. If your child struggles with vision or hearing at school, this will impact their academic abilities.
- Assessing heart and lung problems, such as heart murmurs or asthma, are evaluated during the examination. By identifying these health issues, we can treat them before there is a significant problem.
- Completing Sport Physical forms for students.
- Refilling medications a child may need during their school day and completing forms necessary to approve their administration while at school.
- Answering questions the parents and children have regarding health. Children and adolescents do not have frequent preventative health care visits, and this is a nice time to educate on normal development, discuss healthy habits, address any concerns and answer questions parents may have but don’t always call their health care provider to ask.
- Mental health assessment of anxiety, depression and ADHD is completed and discussed with the parents to ensure any assistance at school is provided for the child to improve academic performance.
- Referrals to other health care specialists or therapists are completed during the visit for health issues such as asthma or autism.
- Back-to-school visits are a great time to reinforce healthy habits, including nutrition and sleep routines, managing screen time, hygiene and self-care, and staying physically active.
At North Star Family Medicine our goal is to establish a strong relationship with our patients based on trust. We support our parents and their children’s health care beliefs. Our goal is to identify and manage medical issues early to ensure proper growth and development.
We look forward to seeing parents and their children in the clinic for their back to school physical and appreciate you trusting us with their family’s health.
