Physicians visit students at Johnson School

Parents, you know how a child's visit with the doctor goes: tears at the beginning, tears at the end and maybe a good shriek or two in between.

Would you believe kids - whole classrooms full of 'em - recently grinned and giggled as they saw doctors.

Maybe it was because they were in the safety of their school rather than a doctor's office. Maybe it's because no one came at them with a syringe.

But for a recent morning, the younger students at Clifford Johnson Elementary School in Warrenville were quite interested in hearing from the osteopathic physicians who were visiting to teach them about the body and keeping it healthy.

Physicians and students from the Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine helped students through a mini-medical school, an event organized by the American Osteopathic Association.

Students in kindergarten through third grade heard about body systems and the basics of staying healthy and fit as they moved through six stations before picking up a certificate and a workbook of health-related activities.

Most likely, though, they'll remember seeing all the bones in a skeleton or the sound of their own heartbeat as they listened through a stethoscope.

Maybe a few will be inspired to become doctors one day. And maybe one of them will figure out how to keep the patients from crying.