At the end of my son’s annual checkup last year, the pediatrician called me back into the exam room, where my 15-year-old had his shirt off and his back to me. He’d asked my son to bend toward the floor, his spine standing out in a knobby ridge. “See that?” the doctor asked. I did: My son’s back was askew, the ribs slightly higher on the right side than on the left. I didn’t have to ask what it meant. I remember taking—and failing—the same test myself, decades ago.
Scoliosis, a curvature of the spine in a C or S ...