{{Infobox medical specialty
| title = Pediatrics
| subdivisions = Pediatric cardiology, neonatology, critical care, pediatric oncology, others (see below)
| image =
| caption = A pediatrician examines a newborn.
and adolescents
s, Infectious diseases, Childhood cancer
[http://www.who.int/childgrowth/en/ Child Growth Standards]
| specialist = Pediatrician
}}
Pediatrics (American and British English differences paediatrics or pædiatrics) is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people be under pediatric care up to the age of 21. (''pais'' "child") and (''iatros'' "doctor, healer"). Pediatricians work both in hospitals, particularly those working in its subspecialties such as neonatology, and as primary care physician.
Already Hippocrates, Aristotle, Celsus, Soranus of Ephesus, and Galen understood the differences in growing and maturing organisms that necessitated different treatment: ' ( "In general, boys should not be treated in the same way as men." CelsusCelsus, ''De Medicinâ'', Book 3, Chapter 7, § 1.).
A second century AD manuscript by the Greek physician and gynecologist Soranus of Ephesus dealt with neonatal pediatrics.P.M. Dunn, "Soranus of Ephesus (circa AD 98–138) and perinatal care in Roman times", ''Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal and Neonatal Edition'', 1995 July; 73(1): F51–F52.[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528358/] Byzantine physicians Oribasius, Aëtius of Amida, Alexander Trallianus, and Paulus Aegineta contributed to the field. The Byzantines also built ''brephotrophia'' (Day cares). Islamic writers served as a bridge for Greco-Roman and Byzantine medicine and added ideas of their own, especially Haly Abbas, Yahya ibn Sarafyun, Avicenna, and Averroes. The Persian philosopher and physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) published a monograph on pediatrics titled Diseases in Children as well as the first definite description of smallpox as a clinical entity.U.S. National Library of Medicine, "Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts, Al-Razi, the Clinician" [https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/islamic_medical/islamic_06.html] Also among the first books about pediatrics was ''Libellus [Opusculum] de aegritudinibus et remediis infantium'' 1472 ("Little Book on Children Diseases and Treatment"), by the Italian pediatrician Paolo Bagellardo."''[https://books.google.com/books?id=dhB2qVWw9SoC&pg=PA1&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Achar S Textbook Of Pediatrics (Third Edition)]''". A. B. Desai (ed.) (1989). p.1. In sequence came Bartholomäus Metlinger's ''Ein Regiment der Jungerkinder'' 1473, Cornelius Roelans (1450–1525) no title Buchlein, or Latin compendium, 1483, and Heinrich von Louffenburg (1391–1460) ''Versehung des Leibs'' written in 1429 (published 1491), together form the ''Pediatric Incunabula'', four great medical treatises on children's physiology and pathology.
The Swedish physician Nils Rosén von Rosenstein (1706–1773) is considered to be the founder of modern pediatrics as a medical specialty, while his work ''The diseases of children, and their remedies'' (1764) is considered to be "the first modern textbook on the subject". Pediatrics as a specialized field of medicine continued to develop in the mid-19th century; German physician Abraham Jacobi (1830–1919) is known as the ''father of American pediatrics'' because of his many contributions to the field."''[https://books.google.com/books?id=d1YRx5d6_K8C&pg=PA4&dq&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false Broadribb's Introductory Pediatric Nursing]''". Nancy T. Hatfield (2007). p.4. ), which opened in Paris in June 1802 on the site of a previous orphanage. and it continues to this day as the pediatric division of the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital, created in 1920 by merging with the physically contiguous ''Necker Hospital'', founded in 1778.
In other European countries, the Charité (a hospital founded in 1710) in Berlin established a separate Pediatric Pavilion in 1830, followed by similar institutions at Sankt Petersburg in 1834, and at Vienna and Breslau (now Wrocław), both in 1837. In 1852 Britain's first pediatric hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded by Charles West (physician). The first Children's hospital in Scotland opened in 1860 in Edinburgh. In the US, the first similar institutions were the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which opened in 1855, and then Boston Children's Hospital (1869). Subspecialties in pediatrics were created at the Harriet Lane Home at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Edwards A. Park (doctor).
A major difference between the practice of pediatric and adult medicine is that children, in most jurisdictions and with certain exceptions, cannot make decisions for themselves. The issues of guardianship, privacy, legal responsibility and informed consent must always be considered in every pediatric procedure. 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. The concept of legal consent combined with the non-legal consent (assent) of the child when considering treatment options, especially in the face of conditions with poor prognosis or complicated and painful procedures/surgeries, means the pediatrician must take into account the desires of many people, in addition to those of the patient.
In high school future pediatricians are required to take basic science classes such as, biology, chemistry, physics, algebra, geometry, and calculus and also foreign language class, preferably Spanish (in the United States), and get involved in high school organizations and extracurricular activities. After high school, college students simply need to fulfill the basic science course requirements that most medical schools recommend and will need to prepare to take the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) their junior or early senior year in college. Once attending medical school, student courses will focus on basic medical sciences like human anatomy, physiology, chemistry, etc., for the first three years, the second year of which is when medical students start to get hands-on experience with actual patients.
| competencies=
| formation=
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
*Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS/MBChB)
s, Clinics
| related_occupation=
}}
The training of pediatricians varies considerably across the world. Depending on jurisdiction and university, a medical degree course may be either undergraduate-entry or graduate-entry. The former commonly takes five or six years, and has been usual in the Commonwealth of Nations. Entrants to graduate-entry courses (as in the US), 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 "medical intern" or "conditional registration".
Pediatricians must undertake further training in their chosen field. This may take from four to eleven or more years, (depending on jurisdiction and the degree of specialization).
In the United States, a medical school graduate wishing to specialize in pediatrics must undergo a three-year residency composed of outpatient, inpatient, surgical, and critical care rotations. Specialties within pediatrics require further training in the form of 3-year fellowships. Specialties include critical care, gastroenterology, neurology, infectious disease, hematology/oncology, rheumatology, pulmonology, child abuse, emergency medicine, endocrinology, neonatology, and others.
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) Specialty (medicine). Specialist training is often largely under the control of pediatric organizations (see below) rather than universities, and depend on jurisdiction.
(''not an exhaustive list'')
(''not an exhaustive list'')