Pediatrician

A physician who provides preventive health maintenance for healthy children and medical care for those who are seriously or chronically ill. Physicians trained in pediatrics are experts in emotional and behavioral/developmental assessment and can be powerful advocates for troubled children and adolescents. They diagnose and treat infections, injuries, genetic defects, malignancies, and many types of organic disease. They also try to reduce infant and child mortality, control infectious disease, foster healthy lifestyles, and ease the day-to-day difficulties of children and adolescents with chronic conditions.

More and more, pediatricians are also involved with the prevention, early detection, and management of behavioral, developmental, and functional social problems. With structured evaluation and early intervention, the primary care pediatrician can identify and address the developmental and behavioral issues related to poverty, violence, personal and familial substance abuse, and singleparent households.

After graduating from medical school, primary care pediatricians complete three years of pediatric residency, where they work with newborns, children, adolescents, and young adults in both community and hospital-based settings. The three-year residency includes mandated rotations in general pediatrics, normal newborn care, and a period of time in subspecialty areas, such as allergy/ immunology, cardiology, critical care neonatal and child/adolescent, endocrinology/metabolism, gastroenterology, hematology/oncology, nephrology, neurology, and pulmonology. Further options for subspecialty education include adolescent medicine, ambulatory pediatrics, behavioral pediatrics, developmental disabilities, emergency medicine, genetics, infectious disease, and rheumatology.

After a pediatric residency, a pediatrician can be board certified after completing a comprehensive written examination. Recertification is required every seven years.

One in three pediatricians also completes a three-year fellowship to prepare for subspecialty practice in either adolescent medicine, cardiology, critical care medicine, emergency medicine, endocrinology, gastroenterology, hematology/ oncology, infectious diseases, neonatal/perinatal medicine, nephrology, pulmonology, or rheumatology. Certificates of added qualification are available in sports medicine, medical toxicology, and clinical laboratory immunology.