Who is the father of pediatrics

Congenital defects, genetic variance, and a host of other issues are of greater concern to pediatricians than they often are to adult physicians. Some diseases, such as sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are more often treated by pediatricians because only recently did the majority of these patients survive into adulthood.

Issues revolving around infectious diseases and immunizations are also dealt with primarily by pediatricians. Put simply, treating a child is not like treating a miniature adult. Childhood is the period of greatest growth, development and maturation of the various organ systems in the body. Years of training and experience above and beyond basic medical training goes into recognizing the difference between normal variants and what is actually pathological.

Another major difference between pediatrics and adult medicine is that children are minors and, in most jurisdictions, cannot make decisions for themselves. The issues of guardianship, privacy, legal responsibility and informed consent must always be considered in every pediatric procedure. In a sense, pediatricians often have to treat the parents and sometimes, the family, rather than just the child. Adolescents are in their own legal class, having rights to their own health care decisions in certain circumstances only, though this is in legal flux and varies by region.

For this reason, some medical historians consider him the father of pediatrics. Pediatrics as a separate area of medical practice in the Western world largely began in the nineteenth century. The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street London was founded in , and is probably the oldest such children's hospital in the English-speaking world. The emigrant German physician, Abraham Jacobi , worked in the same period and is often considered the father of American pediatrics.

Like other physicians, pediatricians begin their training with an entry-level medical education: a tertiary-level course, undertaken at a medical school attached to a university. Depending on jurisdiction and university, this course may be either undergraduate-entry or graduate-entry. The former commonly takes five or six years. Entrants to graduate-entry courses, usually lasting four or five years, have previously completed a three- or four-year university degree, commonly but by no means always in sciences.

Medical graduates hold a degree specific to the country and university in and from which they graduated. This degree qualifies that medical practitioner to become licensed or registered under the laws of that particular country, and sometimes of several countries, subject to requirements for " internship " or "conditional registration".

Pediatricians must undertake further training in their chosen field. This may take from three to six or more years, depending on jurisdiction and the degree of specialization. The training for a primary care physician, including primary care pediatricians, is generally not as lengthy as for a hospital-based medical specialist. In most jurisdictions, entry-level degrees are common to all branches of the medical profession, but in some jurisdictions, specialization in pediatrics may begin before completion of this degree.

In some jurisdictions, pediatric training is begun immediately following completion of entry-level training. In other jurisdictions, junior medical doctors must undertake generalist unstreamed training for a number of years before commencing pediatric or any other specialization. Specialist training is often largely under the control of pediatric organizations see below rather than universities, with varying degrees of government input, depending on jurisdiction. There is a slight semantic difference associated with the difference in spelling.

In the USA, a pediatrician US spelling is commonly a primary care physician, or general practitioner , who specializes in children. A similar situation exists in Germany: a kinderarzt is commonly a primary care pediatrician. Progress in identifying and treating aggressive forms of childhood cancers, managing childhood asthma and ADHD, and developing vaccines for viruses which largely affect our children has been staggering.

Although pediatric medicine has a relatively short history, especially as a specialization within the general medical field, there are many dedicated professionals helping to propel it to greatness.

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