Pediatricians claim adolescent health care in announcing 'new age of pediatrics'

Abstract

In successive waves of professional self-assertion, the medical associations in primary care fields have laid claim to various segments of the population. Obstetrician-gynecologists have proclaimed themselves primary care physicians for women. Family doctors have asserted their capability to handle some eighty percent of all medical problems coming to their offices and to handle medical problems of all ages and both sexes. Internists have expressed similarly wide-ranging roles in adult medicine and are seeking greater recognition for special diagnostic skills. With this trend as background, the American Academy of Pediatricians has announced its new three-year program to seat the specialty of pediatrics as not "just baby doctors," but as physicians to fill the "health care vacuum" for "young people 12 to 18 years of age and to close the cracks in health care for adolescents who often "pass through these important developmental years without adequate medical counseling or guidance."