Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1958-07-24
For School
Many Tots GET
Checked Up On
By Dorothy Waleski
Staff Reporter

Next OClODeI over u pSINCHt VI MOHlSOHl-
ery's kndergartners will have had thorough
medical examinations as the result of pre-school
program to prepare them for the new life of
school routine.
The prediction is based on records of the past
five years of the pre-school conferences which
show steady increase in medical and dental
examinations and lamentations
Montgomery parents may take the pre-school
conference for granted as it has been going on
in the county since 1886. But DR.. William J.
Peoples County Health Officer, calls the 81 per-
cent record of last year probably unparalleled
in this country"
The Summer Roundup began in 1925 as
campaign of the National Congress of
Parents and Teachers to have children enter
ing school as free of remedial defects as pos.
sibIe
In the county it was launched by the P-TA
health chairmen working with the school nurses
and principals Last year for the first time the
board of education accepted Responsibility for the
preschool conferences with the cooperation of the
P-TAs the County Health Department and Medi-
cal Society.
In the years of its growth the pre-school con-
ference has expanded to include an emphasis on
mental as well as physical health.
Today in Montgomery, the Psychiatric Youth
Services and pediatricians serving as school
medical advisers work with the family physician
parents and school personnel to treat the whole
child"
Every elementary school i'm the county
each Spring holds period of registration
known the preschOOl conference for the
children who will enter its kindergarten i'm
the FALL
Parents asked to bring along with the
childs birth certificate the record of its medical
and dental examinations and immunizations from
smallpox, diphtheria- pertusss-tetanus and polio
and tuberculosis test.
This Spring, of the 6416 pre-kindergartners
enrolled in 81 schools, 1874 percent had medical
examinations; 532 percent, dental examinations;
939 percent vaccinations; 962 percent initial
OPT shots; S3.1 percent, booster OPT shots;
93.1 percent initial polio shots; S7.9 percent
booster polio shots; and TSP percent, tuberculin
tests.
But these record breaking percentages
are only part of the picture of the pre.schOol
roundup it has developed i'm the past S3
years.
DR.. Harold H. Mitchell county administrator
to the school health service took part in the Sum-
mer roundup from its beginning as member of
its Advisory Committee of the National Congress
of P-TAs
Dr. Mitchell has had the satisfaction of
watching the program develop in the direction he
advocated from the start.
At first the round-ups were aimed at one
shot superficial physical check-up by the doctors
OF mass production line in the schools or clinics
spirit of competition was fostered even by
the medical record cards which listed defects
found at the roundup on one side and on the
other checked the defects that had been treated
by the time school opened
Although this competition was good in that it
helped correct teeth eye, ear and other defects
it had bad'effect in encouraging about removal
OF tonsils and adenoids. Even that private pedia-
tr1clans were beginning to recognize that this
surgery was not the cure all it was supposed
to be.
But the important difference between them
and now is that todays preschool conference is
only one step in the relationship between the
family doctor pedatrician and the child and
his parents
The medical history begins when the child is
born and is continuous process that is funda-
mental to good medical care and the best practice
of preventive medicine.
This makes the quick uncover by the school
doctor who knows nothing about the child his
parents or his background obsolete practice
with very little value
Another big change over the years has been
the increase in immunzation In 1925 vaccination
against smallpox was the only one available
Diphtheria immunization was not included in
the trst P-TA campaigns because so many COM
munities were not able to offer it,
The very few children who had this immuniza-
ton were either children of parents who pioneered
the cause of continuous medical supervision
lived in community where the Health Depart
ment was doing pioneering service.
Now whooping cough and tetanus prevention
nave been added to the diphtheria immunization
and polio and tuberculin testing, the most recent
additions, are all accepted as part of the routine
pre-school requirements
dental care was the strongest holdout in
parental cooperation This Springs percentage of
1913 of the children having dental checkups shows
that the impact of education by P!TA health chair
men, dentists and the health department in this
direction is beginning to take effect How rapid
the expansion here has been can be seen in that
hve years ago only five percent of the children
returned their dental cards
Now that the P-TA has turned over the re-
sponsibity of the preschoo conference to the
schools, there is no indication that tho health