The Periodic Health Overhaul

The National Health Service offers periodic checks for specific conditions, such as regular smear tests or mammograms for women within certain age parameters, or eye tests where there is a history of eye disease. Sometimes a company will require a "medical" before appointment, as or a condition of continuing employment, but few people have access to the comprehensive health overhaul that was an annual event for all members of the Pioneer Health Centre. The overhaul was one of the conditions of membership and it was also at the centre of the research programme.

This was no "medical" to check for disease or a known pre-disease. This was a health overhaul which reviewed each member's health in terms of their biological, nutritional, medical and social development and functioning. Each member of the family underwent a laboratory investigation and a complete personal examination, stripped, from head to toe. The results were then presented to them in a family consultation, with both the male and female doctors who had examined them. Starting with the youngest child, his/her findings were discussed before he/she left the room. The next child would be discussed before he/she left. When only the parents remained their children's findings were discussed. They were told what was right as well as what was not so good. No advice was offered, but they were given information about how and when things could be corrected. Their understanding may have differed, but there was always a concern to do their best for their children. Next they together heard their own findings. Then followed a very full discussion about them and their children. After this the parents heard about the significance of the phase of growth that they and the family were passing through. As Innes Pearse explained in a lecture at St Andrew's University

"Were it, for instance, the wife's menopause, the happenings, duration and influence of this for her, for the husband and for the family now and for the future might be discussed. If they were a young family the significance of the child for them and the unfolding of their inherent biological capacity for nurture with its effect not only on the growth of the child, but upon their own maturing, would be looked at and discussed from the bionomic aspect. This information was new to them. It set them thinking on new lines."

From Is Health a Suitable Study for Academic Consideration? (see publications)

Ad hoc and other routine consultations

Besides the periodic overhaul, there were other family consultations with the doctors, many of which became routine procedures. These included parental consultations on conception, during and following pregnancy, including weaning, before marriage, around puberty or menopause. Unlike the periodic overhaul, these were voluntary, but they soon became appreciated by the members. They allowed a wide range of issues to be discussed in a supportive and educational setting. They also provided additional data for the research being undertaken.

more about the periodic overhaul