The sudden leap from your final year of elementary school to your freshman year of high school may be a great one, but aside from the slightly increased workload, highschool provides you with numerous opportunities that expose you to a wide range of career paths, including the medical field. Although it is not essential, it is always beneficial for students to have a rough idea of their future career path when going into high school. Therefore, this blog will help you select an idea of your future field of study and introduce you to the medical field, briefly examining the career path of medicine, but moreover, providing you with valuable insights into the branch of Pediatrics.
What Is Medicine?
Before we get started, it is essential to know what the overall career path of medicine is all about. Medicine is the field of health and healing that includes specialists such as doctors, nurses, therapists, etc. It covers diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, medical research, and it overall aims to promote and maintain health and wellbeing.
Medicine contains numerous fields and aspects that include, but not limited to the following:
Clinical Practice:
Directly working with patients in a health setting (doctor, nurse, etc).
Biomedical Research:
seeking ways to prevent/treat diseases leading to illness or death
Medications:
examining drugs/medications and how to use them
Surgery:
Surgical procedures are instrumental and manual needs rather than medications to treat an injury/disease/malformation.
Medical Devices:
Using a wide range of instruments to diagnose and treat a disease or other condition.
Psychotherapy:
Counseling, cognitive behavioural therapy and other forms of “talking cure” greatly helps those with mental health conditions.
Moving on, the field of medicine contains a wide range of branches which includes anatomy, biochemistry, pharmacology and many more. However, the focus of this blog today will solely be on the branch of Pediatrics.
About Pediatrics
Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the treatment of children’s illnesses. The age limit of such patients range from birth to 18 years. This branch of medicine is a relatively new specialty as it only developed in the mid-19th century. Below, you will get to know the objectives of pediatrics, as well as how it differs from regular adult medicine.
Aims Of Pediatrics
Pediatrics focuses on reducing the mortality rate of infants and children, controlling the spread of infectious diseases within youngsters and promoting healthy lifestyles free from illnesses. This branch of medicine is not only concerned about the immediate management of children’s illnesses, but also the long-term effects on their quality of life, survival and disability.
Difference between Adult Medicine and Pediatrics
Pediatrics and Adult medicine differ from each other in various ways. Physiologically, the small body of a newborn, infant or child is quite different from that of an adult; simply put, treating a child is nothing similar to treating the miniature version of an adult. To explain, pediatricians are more concerned with developmental issues and genetic variances in comparison to physicians who treat adults, since most pediatric patients are still physically developing. Along with this, legal issues play a major role in pediatrics, especially because children are minors who cannot make decisions for themselves, and thus, parental consent and the issues of things like privacy and legal responsibility should be taken into account for all pediatric procedures. Furthermore, pediatricians must be immensely patient and empathetic in order to successfully communicate with children and combat challenges associated with pediatric patients since they are constantly maturing emotionally, physically, socially and intellectually.
Major Occupations Involving Pediatrics
Pursuing a career in pediatrics is suitable for individuals who desire to work in the healthcare industry, but particularly with children. Listed below are some of the top careers in pediatrics.
1. Pediatrician:
Simply put, pediatricians are doctors who manage the health of children, including physical behaviour and mental health issues. They are trained to diagnose and treat childhood illnesses, from minor health problems to serious diseases. Many pediatricians work as primary care physicians that perform regular checkups, diagnose and treat health conditions, etc. However, some pediatricians specialize in dealing with specific areas (such as treating a specific health condition, or working with patients of a specific age group). Below are a few examples of pediatric subspecialties:
Adolescent Medical Specialists: they focus on providing care to adolescents (11-21 years)
Developmental Behavioral Pediatricians: they focus on the behavioural development of teens and children.
Pediatric Oncologist: they focus on treating various types of cancers in children.
Pediatric Cardiologist: they focus on treating various heart related illnesses in children.
Pediatric Pulmonologist: they focus on treating and managing children with lung diseases or breathing problems.
Education Requirements
After high school, you will need 4 years of undergraduate courses at a college/university (which will get you a bachelor's degree). After this, you will attend 4 years of medical school to receive either an MD or DO. After medical school, you are considered as a "general" doctor. Usually, these doctors then learn a specialty in medicine (for instance, pediatrics). This requires additional years of residency training. In the case of general pediatrics, it will be 3 years of residency training, however, a subspecialty requires fellowship.
Child Psychologist
Child psychologists provide mental health services to children, giving treatments for children who are experiencing behavioral, social and developmental problems. They help children handle stresses that are linked to death, divorce or family/school transitions for example. They communicate with the children, evaluate their behaviour, research their behavioural patterns and start providing treatment. Child psychologists can work in various settings, such as schools, hospitals or private clinics.
Education Requirements:
First, aspiring child psychologists must complete a bachelor's degree in a related field (behavioral health, mental health, psychology, etc.)
After completing this, they must go to graduate school. Professionals would need a doctorate to become a licensed child psychologist. When selecting a doctoral program, the students must first choose between receiving a Ph.D. in psychology or a Psy.D. (doctor of psychology).
Candidates for a licensure in psychology must also complete a certain number of supervised clinical hours ranging from 1500-6000.
Why Pediatrics?
Pediatrics is a significant specialty that has various advantages linked to it. Below are some of the reasons why you should consider pursuing a career in this field:
1. Making A Difference
A professional in pediatrics can make a HUGE difference in their patient’s lives, since the health of such youngsters is extremely crucial, as they are extremely vulnerable beings and prone to various illnesses. Being a pediatric professional, you get to protect children from illnesses, cancers, you get to talk about nutrition and the importance of exercise, and moreover, you get to help parents guide their children to be healthy and happy individuals (what is better than improving the life of an innocent child!)
2. Building Bonds with Patients
As a professional in pediatrics, you will be able to build strong bonds with your patients; you will be able to see your newborn patients grow up to be teens and young adults. In addition, you can even develop generations of patients if you continue to practice in one location, as you may have previous patients grow up and bring their children to you. Therefore, you can establish special connections with patients you will not be able to do in other specialties
3. More Fellowship Opportunities
Pediatrics has over 15 fellowship opportunities that are structured to provide you with significant work experience, thereby allowing you to have more opportunities to grow and train.
Skills You Can Develop Now:
Developing communication skills.
Aspiring pediatricians require excellent communication skills in order to effectively communicate with the patient’s family/caregivers as well as the patient themselves, despite their age.
Active Listening Skills
As a pediatrician, it is important to listen to what patients or their parents are telling you about any conditions, in order to provide them with proper treatment.
Working well with children
As a professional in this field, you will come into contact with children majority of the time who tend to be nervous or afraid of various things. Therefore, it would be immensely beneficial if you are able to manage them well and help ease their anxiety during their treatment
Being Open Minded
As a pediatrician, you will work with children that come from diverse backgrounds and hold different perspectives and therefore, it is crucial to be aware of this and build a trusting, safe environment around you.
Conclusion:
The branch of pediatrics is indeed a broad one, containing various subspecialties, careers and many more. Along with this, it is also a very significant specialty as it deals with the treatment of children’s illnesses. Overall, pediatrics is a very important specialty, and I definitely recommend considering it as one of your future career paths.
- By Janusha Chandranathan
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