Pediatrician Day Date in the current year: November 20, 2024

Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. In most countries, only minors under 18 are under pediatric care, although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the upper age limit for being under pediatric care be 21. The world “pediatrics” is derived from Greek words meaning “child” and “healer”, so it literally means “healer of children”.

Aristotle, Hippocrates and other ancient scholars already understood that children and adults required different treatments. Pediatrics in some form existed in Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Byzantine Empire and Persia. Modern pediatrics as a medical specialty is considered to have been founded by Nils Rosén von Rosenstein, a Swedish physician who published his work titled The Diseases of Children and Their Remedies in 1764.

The world’s first specialized pediatric hospital was opened in Paris in 1802. Other countries soon followed suit, and similar institutions were founded in Berlin (1830), Saint Petersburg (1834), Vienna (1837), Wroclaw (1837), London (1852), Philadelphia (1855), Edinburgh (1860), and Boston (1869).

There are several important differences between adult medicine and pediatrics. The first and most obvious one is that children aren’t simply “little adults”; their physiology is different, and its differences from adult physiology must be taken into account when diagnosing illnesses and prescribing treatment.

Another major difference between adult and pediatric medicine is that children generally cannot make healthcare decisions for themselves, so pediatricians have to take into account the desires or parents or legal guardians when considering treatment options. In a certain sense, pediatricians bear greater responsibility than physicians who practice adult medicine.

Pediatrician Day is celebrated on November 20, coinciding with Universal Children’s Day that was inaugurated by the UN General Assembly in 1954. By the way, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that was signed on November 20, 1989 recognizes the right of each child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health, which, of course, involves pediatricians.