Established | 1928 |
---|---|
President | Steve Turner |
Address | 5–11 Theobald's Road , |
Members | 22,000 (2024) |
Website | www |
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, often referred to as the RCPCH, is the professional body for paediatricians (doctors specialising in child health) in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for the postgraduate training of paediatricians and conducts the Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (MRCPCH) exams. It also awards the Diploma in Child Health (DCH), which is taken by many doctors who plan a career in general practice. Members of the college use the postnominal initials 'MRCPCH' while Fellows use 'FRCPCH'.
The United Kingdom's first national group of paediatricians was established in 1928 as the British Paediatric Association or BPA. Its first president was George Frederic Still. The BPA's initial aims were the advancement of the study of paediatrics and the promotion of friendship amongst paediatricians. Most paediatricians also belonged to the Royal College of Physicians and took the examination MRCP(Paeds). The BPA was granted royal college status in August 1996. The MRCP(Paeds) exam was replaced by the MRCPCH in 1999.
The College's official journal, the Archives of Disease in Childhood, was founded in 1926.[ citation needed ]
The RCPCH's first home was in Hallam Street, London. On 21 March 2008 the College moved to new premises at 5-11 Theobalds Road, London, where it is still based.[ citation needed ]
The RCPCH's stated aim is to 'transform child health through knowledge, innovation and expertise'. [1] In practice it has a number of roles:
The college works closely with other bodies, including the Department of Health (United Kingdom), the Local Education and Training Boards, the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board, the General Medical Council, the National Clinical Assessment Service (NCAS), the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), children's charities and the other medical royal colleges.[ citation needed ]
Senior doctors who have completed paediatric training can apply for Fellowship of the RCPCH, after which they can use the letters FRCPCH.
The coat of arms of the college commemorate June Lloyd, first female President of the British Paediatric Association and Thomas Phaire, whose Boke of Chyldren from 1545 was the first book on paediatrics in English. The crest is a baby, taken from the arms of the Foundling Hospital in Coram's Fields.
The President is the elected head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Start date | End date | President | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1926 | George Frederic Still | first president of the BPA | |
1935 | Albert Ernest Naish | ||
James Holmes Hutchison | |||
1965 | Richard Ellis | ||
1968 | 1969 | Alfred White Franklin | |
1973 | 1976 | Donald Court | |
Otto Herbert Wolff | |||
1988 | 1991 | June Lloyd | first female president of the BPA |
1991 | 1994 | David Hull | |
1994 | 1996 | Roy Meadow | Disgraced by his misuse of statistics |
Start date | End date | President | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1996 | 1997 | Roy Meadow | first president of the RCPCH |
1997 | 1999 | David Baum | died in office |
1999 | 2003 | David Hall | |
2003 | 2006 | Alan Craft | supported Roy Meadow<ref> |
2006 | 2009 | Patricia Hamilton | first female president of the RCPCH |
2009 | 2012 | Terence Stephenson | |
2012 | 2015 | Hilary Cass | |
2015 | 2018 | Neena Modi | |
2018 | 2021 | Russell Viner | |
2021 | 2024 | Camilla Kingdon | |
2024 | 2027 | Steve Turner | - |
June Kathleen Lloyd, Baroness Lloyd of Highbury was a British paediatrician and, in retirement, a cross bench member of the House of Lords. June Lloyd was a determined advocate for children's health and was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. In 1996, the college gained its royal status. She was also known for discovering that the damage caused to patients by the rare metabolic disease oQ-betalipoproteinaemia, that could be avoided by the use of Vitamin E. She was also known for discovering the role of lipid metabolism in health and disease in childhood, which was original and difficult to investigate at that time.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) is a not-for-profit professional organisation responsible for training and educating physicians and paediatricians across Australia and New Zealand.
The Diplomate of National Board (DNB) is a postgraduate degree in medicine awarded by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, on completion of three-year training in any of 30 broad specialties. DNB is equivalent to the Master of Medicine (MD), Master of Surgery (MS), Doctor of Medicine (DM), and Master of Chirurgiae (MCh) in all purposes. Doctors who already hold an MD/MS/DM/MCh are eligible to directly appear in the DNB final examination.
Dr. Karthik Nagesh is a neonatologist in India. He has been practicing neonatal intensive care since 1992 at the Manipal Hospital in Bangalore. He is well known in India for his pioneering work in intensive care for sick neonates especially, Surfactant Therapy and ventilation for sick babies with respiratory distress. He is currently the Chairman of the Manipal Advanced Children's Center and Chairman and HOD of Neonatology and Neonatal ICUs at the Manipal Hospitals Group as well as an adjunct professor of paediatrics, KMC at Manipal University.
Victor Dubowitz is a British neurologist and professor emeritus at Imperial College London. He is principally known along with his wife Lilly Dubowitz for developing two clinical tests, the Dubowitz Score to estimate gestational age and the other for the systematic neurological examination of the newborn.
Sir Robert Hutchison, 1st Baronet, FRCP was a Scottish physician and paediatrician, and the original editor of the medical books, Clinical Methods and Food and the Principles of Dietetics.
John Oldroyd Forfar, MC, FRSE was a Scottish paediatrician and academic. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and later became a leading civilian paediatrician. He was Professor of Child Life and Health at the University of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1982. He was President of the British Paediatric Association from 1985 to 1988, and was instrumental in the founding of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
B. J. C. Perera is a Sri Lankan pediatrician. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Sri Lanka Journal of Bio-Medical Informatics.
Hilary Dawn Cass, Baroness Cass,, is a British paediatrician. She was the chair of the British Academy of Childhood Disability, established the Rett Clinic for children with Rett syndrome, and has worked to develop palliative care for children. She led the Cass Review of gender identity services in England, which was completed in 2024. Cass was appointed to the House of Lords as a crossbench life peer in the same year.
Leonard Birnie Strang FRCP was a Scottish born, British professor of Paediatric sciences and was a Secretary of the Paediatric Committee of the Royal College of Physicians. He was considered an outstanding clinical observer, contributing to the first accounts of harlequinism and of catecholamine secretion in neuroblastoma. However it was his later work that Leonard Strang became famous, leading a team over two decades studying pulmonary vasculature in the perinatal period and even more the central role that secretion of lungs containing fluid plays in lung formation and preparation for birth.
Sir Alan Aird Moncrieff, was a British paediatrician and professor emeritus at University of London. He was most notable for developing the first premature-baby unit in 1947. It was Moncrief who recognised and developed the concept of daily parental visits to the ward, which he developed while at Great Ormond Street, well before the need for this became recognised, and with his ward sister, published an article on Hospital Visiting for Children in 1949.
Seymour Donald Mayneord Court was a British paediatrician who was known for his achievements in the fields of respiratory disease and the epidemiology of disease in childhood. He was also known for working, in a primary role, that established the importance of research into the social and behavioural aspects of illness in childhood.
David Robert Harvey was a British paediatrician and considered by his peers to be a champion of the less privileged. Harvey was most notable for developing the training of neonatal medicine doctors at a time when the speciality had no official recognition. Harvey was homosexual and never afraid to disclose it, even at the beginning of his career, when homophobia was more prominent.
British Association of Perinatal Medicine, known as BAPM, is a charitable organization that was founded in Bristol in 1976 that is most notable for being a pressure group to advance the standards of perinatal care within the United Kingdom by a dedicated core of professional physicians who are accredited by examination.
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Ramesh Dulichandbhai Mehta is an Indian-born British Paediatrician at Bedford Hospital, and president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), in the United Kingdom.
Russell Mardon Viner, FMedSci is an Australian-British paediatrician and policy researcher who is Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for Education and Professor of Adolescent Health at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He is an expert on child and adolescent health in the UK and internationally. He was a member of the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) during the COVID-19 pandemic and was President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2018 to 2021. He remains clinically active, seeing young people with diabetes each week at UCL Hospitals. Viner is vice-chair of the NHS England Transformation Board for Children and Young People and Chair of the Stakeholder Council for the Board. He is a non-executive director (NED) at Great Ormond St. Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, also sitting on the Trust's Finance & Investment and the Quality and Safety sub-committees.
John Kingdon Guy Webb was an English paediatrician and first-class cricketer. After attending the University of Oxford, where he played first-class cricket, Webb became a paediatrician who spent eighteen years at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and was instrumental in helping set up a paediatric medical structure in the country.
Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad OBE, DL, FRCP, Hon FRCPCH, MRCS (1946-) is a Malawi-born consultant paediatrician of Memon heritage, working in England.
Thomas Stapleton FRCP (Lond), FRACP, FRCPCH (1920-2007) was a British paediatrician who worked in Australia.