Pediatrics also spelled paediatrics, is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many of their youth until the age of 18. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people seek pediatric care through the age of 21, but some pediatric subspecialists continue to care for adults up to 25. Worldwide age limits of pediatrics have been trending upward year after year. A medical doctor who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, or paediatrician. The word pediatrics and its cognates mean "healer of children", derived from the two Greek words: παῖς and ἰατρός. Pediatricians work in clinics, research centers, universities, general hospitals and children's hospitals, including those who practice pediatric subspecialties.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the largest professional association of pediatricians in the United States. It is headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, and maintains an office in Washington, D.C. The AAP has published hundreds of policy statements, ranging from advocacy issues to practice recommendations.
A children's hospital(CH) is a hospital that offers its services exclusively to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults from birth up to until age 18, and through age 21 and older in the United States. In certain special cases, they may also treat adults. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties.
The Perelman School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private, Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia. Founded in 1765, the Perelman School of Medicine is the oldest medical school in the United States. Today, the Perelman School of Medicine is a major center of biomedical research and education with over 2,900 faculty members and nearly $1 billion in annual sponsored program awards.
The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth – HSC, Health Science Center, Health Science Center at Fort Worth – is an academic health science center in Fort Worth, Texas. It is part of the University of North Texas System and was founded in 1970 as the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, with its first cohort graduating in 1974. The Health Science Center consists of six schools with a total enrollment of 2,338 students (2022-23).
Adolescent medicine, also known as adolescent and young adult medicine, is a medical subspecialty that focuses on care of patients who are in the adolescent period of development. This period begins at puberty and lasts until growth has stopped, at which time adulthood begins. Typically, patients in this age range will be in the last years of middle school up until college graduation. In developed nations, the psychosocial period of adolescence is extended both by an earlier start, as the onset of puberty begins earlier, and a later end, as patients require more years of education or training before they reach economic independence from their parents.
Barry S. Zuckerman is Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center. He started the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine and Boston City Hospital and was one of 12 founders of the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. He was appointed chair of Pediatrics in 1993 and was asked to be First Medical Director of Boston Medical Center when Boston City Hospital merged with University Hospital. He is a co-founder of Reach Out and Read, a national childhood literacy program in the United States, founder of Medical-Legal Partnership, and co-founder of Health Leads, Healthy Steps, and the Nutrition & Fitness for Life pediatric obesity program, all of which have transformed pediatric care for low-income families. Most recently, along with colleagues, he developed a free app for pediatric primary care called "Small Moments, Big Impact" to promote the mother-infant relationship and emotional well-being for low-income mothers from birth through the first six months of their baby's life.
Children's Hospital of Michigan (CHM) is a for-profit, pediatric acute care hospital located in Detroit, Michigan. The hospital has 227 beds and is affiliated with both the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Michigan State University Medical School. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to pediatric patients aged 0–21 throughout eastern Michigan and the Detroit area and is a part of the Detroit Medical Center. The hospital features the only freestanding pediatric Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center in the Detroit region, 1 of 3 in the state. It is an international provider of pediatric neurology, neurosurgery, cardiology, oncology and diagnostic services including Positron Emission Tomography and MRI.
Robert M. "Bob" Wachter is an academic physician and author. He is on the faculty of University of California, San Francisco, where he is chairman of the Department of Medicine, the Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine, and the Holly Smith Distinguished Professor in Science and Medicine. He is generally regarded as the academic leader of the hospitalist movement, the fastest growing specialty in the history of modern medicine. He and a colleague, Lee Goldman, are known for coining the term "hospitalist" in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article.
Julie Story Byerley is an American physician who is known as a leader in the fields of medical education and pediatrics. Byerley has served as a clinical professor and Vice Dean for Education for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She currently serves as President and Dean of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine as well as Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Geisinger Health System.
Dr. Iris F Litt is an American physician, professor, and medical director who specializes in pediatrics and adolescent health. She has achieved multiple honors through her teaching and research in different areas of adolescent and pediatric health.
The Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital (SKMTH), also known as the University of Botswana Medical School, is the school of medicine of the University of Botswana, Botswana's oldest and largest public university. The medical school was established in 2009. The school provides medical education at undergraduate, and postgraduate levels.
Mark Schuster is the Founding Dean and CEO of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine located in Pasadena, California. Schuster assumed his position in 2017, and the school opened in July 2020. Schuster is a physician-scientist known for his work on child, adolescent, and family health.
Nadia Lauren Dowshen is an American pediatrician and adolescent medicine physician. She specializes in the care of youth living with HIV infection and medical care to transgender and gender-diverse youth. Dowshen researches health inequality, access to care, and promoting resilience in LGBT youth. As an associate professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she is also the medical director and co-founder of the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic.
Rhea W. Boyd is an American pediatrician and child and community health advocate. Boyd is a popular science communicator, making use of social media to amplify a diverse range of voices in an effort to improve the heath of communities of colour.
Raina Martha Merchant is an American emergency medicine specialist, a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is the associate vice president and director of the Center for Digital Health in Penn Medicine and associate professor of emergency medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Rinad S. Beidas is an American clinical child psychologist and implementation scientist. She is currently the chair and Ralph Seal Paffenbarger Professor of the department of Medical Social Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She was formerly professor of Psychiatry and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; Founding Director of the Penn Implementation Science Center (PISCE@LDI); and Director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. She also served as Associate Director at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE).
Claire Brindis, DrPH, is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health Sciences and Emerita Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her research considers women's, adolescent and child health, as well as adolescent pregnancy prevention strategies. She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2010.
Adele Hofmann was an American pediatrician. She was a leader in the field of adolescent medicine, co-authoring the field’s authoritative textbook and co-founding two of its leading professional organizations.
Fatima Cody Stanford is an American obesity medicine physician, internist, and pediatrician and an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She is one of the most highly cited scientists in the field of obesity. She is recognized for shifting the global perception of obesity as a chronic disease.
