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Can I Fail a Physical Exam? 

Can I Fail a Physical Exam? 

Your physical, mental, and social well-being are vital to maintaining your overall health and essential to living a quality life for a long time. We’re built to be active, and physical activity is key to staying on the path to a healthy life by reducing your risk of disease. Physical examinations are a way to ensure you’re in good health and to give you ways to stay that way. 

They often also play a role in your work life and any sports you may participate in, but some factors in the results can affect getting a job or staying there and whether or not you can be a part of a sports team. To learn more, let’s look at the types of physical exams we get and how the results can affect employment and athletic competition.

Dr. Andrew Nangalama and his experienced medical team at American River Urgent Care can help you with the screenings and exams involved in your physical and explain the results and their meaning.

Types of physical exams

The screenings, blood and urine draw, and other parts of a physical examination are to help with a few different things regarding your health:

General health

This is often the annual physical most people undergo to check up on their health status and determine the risk or presence of possible diseases or conditions that may affect them in the future.

Fitness to participate in sports

Grade schools, colleges, and teams can use these exams to determine whether you’re in good enough shape to be active in a sport and rule out any diseases or abnormalities that may keep that from happening. Things like a history of dizziness, allergies, mood disorders, and past injuries can affect your ability to play on a team.

Fitness to work

This is sometimes part of the onboarding process to start a job where minimum physical fitness is required or if you need to drive a vehicle. It can assess any health risk you can potentially pose to others on the job. Drug testing to determine if you’re eligible to work there can also be done periodically after you’re employed.

How the results affect your professional life

When we say fail an exam, it’s not a test in the same sense as something you do in a class. However, the implications of the results can affect your health risks, which can mean not being eligible to participate in intense physical activities or manage the stresses of a job. And if you’re active in sports and get injured, exams can help determine if you’re ready to return.

The presence of illegal drugs in test results can also disqualify you from getting a job you’re looking for or being fired from a job you work at. The specific laws will vary from state to state regarding penalties or the chances of working at a given company again.

Failing an exam is less a test of intelligence and more an indication of possible health risks in a professional environment. If you need to undergo a pre-employment or sports exam, make an appointment with Dr. Nangalama and American River Urgent Care today.

 

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