Preventive and social pediatrics

Summary

• 1. Pediatrics is medicine at a special age period, and pediatrics is all medicine and not a branch. Nevertheless, the size of the problem affects about 38 per cent of the population of the country and its importance lies in laying the foundations of health in early childhood when maximum growth and development in every direction is taking place.

• 2. There is a strong case for starting medical students very early in the pre-clinical years to understand health and disease in the child. The student is trained to make observations in order to arrive at a diagnosis.

• 3. The link-up of pediatrics with several other disciplines brings several inter-disciplines into prominence, such as child-psychology and preventive and social pediatrics.

• 4. The out-patient, the well-baby clinic, the M. C. H., and the school-health clinics afford opportunity to the medical student particularly in seeing total family care.

• 5. Communicable diseases and immunisation programmes form the best approach in pediatrics to preventive and social medicine. These are most common in the early age-groups and have specific disease prevention.

• 6. Preventive and social pediatrics forms the best all-around approach to preventive and social medicine, during the clinical years.