%0 Journal Article
%T A Very General Overview of the Development Pediatric Emergency Medicine as a Specialty in the United States and Advocacy for Pediatric Healthcare; the Charge to Other Countries
%A Ron D. Waldrop
%J Archive of "Advanced Journal of Emergency Medicine".
%D 2018
%R 10.22114/AJEM.v0i0.39
%X One of the first noted instances regarding awareness of pediatric specific illnesses in the United States came from the writings of Dr. Benjamin Rush during the late 1700¡¯s where he titled a section in his medical text ¡°Diseases Specific to Children¡±. Throughout the 1700¡¯s and 1800¡¯s and even early 1900¡¯s medicine was primarily a generalist profession where all ages were cared for by a personal family physician and there were virtually no subspecialties for adults or children. At that time in American history children were the great neglected segment of society in families, labor, and healthcare and were often treated more as property than valued life. There were a few pediatric advocates of note. Abraham Jacobi is considered the father of modern pediatrics and advocated for pediatrics being separated from the field of obstetrics. His actions were fundamental in the formation of the Section on Diseases of Children within the American Medical Association (AMA). In the 1930s there was a recognized need for separate pediatric specialty care advocacy organization and hence the development of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) occurred. This was primarily born out of the lack of and need for federal funding to support pregnant women and children as well as the need for a foundational organization for the development of pediatrics as a specialty in the United States in the future. In the 1950¡¯s pediatric poisonings became commonplace due to chemicals available after the end of World War II. As a result, the first poison control center was formed in Chicago and a manual was published by the AAP on pediatric poisonings. Similarly, the first cardiac surgeries for congenital heart disease were occurring and the specialty of pediatric cardiology was arising. The rising nuclear threat in the 1950¡¯s and 1960¡¯s also raised concern for disaster planning meeting specific pediatric needs and led to further committees, interest groups and publications. In addition, as trauma specialties and general emergency medicine grew under the auspices of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Heart Association (AHA) so did the need for sub-specialization for pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). In the early 1980s as an outgrowth of the ACEP and AAP, plans to cooperate and create the subspecialty of PEM began. The goal of the specialty was to train specialists, procure resources funding for research, and standardize training. The first subspecialty board for PEM was administered in 1992 and has continues to this date. Another outgrowth was
%U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6548101/