They Needed Education

I am a physician and about 10 years ago before I semi-retired, I volunteered my extra time giving medical care to poor and underprivileged children in an inner city neighborhood. It was really sad sometimes because many of these people did not have access to health care other than the free health care that my other colleagues and I would volunteer so we would see people with injuries or ailments that hadn't been properly taken care of for quite a long time and most of us knew that if we didn't do anything nothing would get done because these people just couldn't afford it. Another thing that we saw from time to time was child abuse and we were always looking for signs of verbal or physical abuse with children. One day this boy came in to the clinic with his mother who did not speak fluent English. The boy's name was Domingo, I remember because I saw Domingo on many more occasions. The first time I saw Domingo he stood out to me because he had this very unhappy countenance, he just seemed like a very troubled boy. My first thought was some type of abuse so I made sure to get him alone so that I could find out what was going on. I took him into the exam room and asked how old he was. 'Fourteen' he replied, that shocked me because I thought that he was closer to 10 just because he was very small for his age. I proceeded to examine the boy and I was also looking for any signs of physical abuse of which I found none.

I couldn't figure out why Domingo seemed so troubled so I continued with my examination asking him questions about his family, thinking perhaps he might offer a clue into some type of emotional abuse that was going on. I eventually told Domingo to pull his pants down which was standard in my examinations to see if he was developing normally, this involved nothing more than a quick look at his genitals. A cursory glance to see the approximate size of his genitals and to see if pubic hair was growing or not. He was small for his age but his genitalia was no smaller than I had seen on most boys his age and the pubic hair was just beginning to come in. After that I was ready to excuse him and he asked me if he could ask me a question. I told him go ahead and he proceeded to tell me that a few nights ago he hurt his private part and that white liquid came out and that he was worried. I laughed, not at him but because I was relieved that I had found the reason he was so worried. I told him that every man made semen and that this was because as we grow up our bodies change and so on. I gave Domingo a five minute course on the birds and the bees and I could almost see him having this weight lifted off his shoulders just knowing that he didn't damage anything.

I happened to casually mention this to a colleague a few days later and she was concerned that I had over stepped my boundaries, that perhaps I shouldn't have given him information without his parents consent. I could not have disagreed more because Domingo was 14 years old and had already begun ejaculating and nobody ever told him about the changes his body would go through so parents or no parents he needed to know. After that I started a sex education course in that neighborhood at one of the public schools to be taught to sixth grade students and as far as I know the program continues to this day. They needed sex education because I found out that many of the children were either like Domingo and had no clue or had a bunch of misinformation from the streets.