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MEDICAL FAMILIES
Life With a Doctor Parent: Unexpected Benefits and Challenges
What it was like growing up as a doctor’s daughter in 1970s and 80s England
Mum removed the thermometer from my mouth, and her eyes widened in horror.
107 °F!
Without a word, she fled the room. A minute later, Dad appeared, holding the thermometer. He glanced at me, shook the instrument a few times, and instructed me to put it back under my tongue. Then he stood looking out of my bedroom window, hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently.
Two minutes later, when he checked, my temperature was down to a more reasonable 102 °F.
“What happened with the thermometer?” Dad asked.
“Nothing. I just washed it with soap and warm water to kill the germs”, I said.
“Hmm — that water must have been quite warm,” he replied, his eyes crinkling.
Younger me didn’t know that mercury thermometers would remain at the level of the last temperature they’d reached. My father taught me to shake the thermometer to make the mercury return to its base level.
If he’d been momentarily worried about me, he didn’t let it show. Throughout my entire childhood, I…