Special Report From the Committee for the Improvement of Child Health
The Health of the Nation Depends on the Health of the Child The number one health problem of this country is not any one aspect of medical care. Cancer, heart disease, mental illness, important in themselves, are less vital to the nation's well-being than the general health of its children. Organic and mental health of adults depend largely on the care they received as children. Only in old age is the incidence of disease as high as in childhood; in no other age group does disabling disease strike as often. In infancy the very survival rate varies directly with the availability and quality of medical care. The need for preventive, diagnostic, and curative services of high quality for all children has beenn established and agreed upon by the government, organized medicine, voluntary agencies and the public. Furthermore, there is general agreement on the need for improvement of child health. So much evidence has already been givn on the subject that the case for better medical care and health supervision for children is well established. Better Child Health Depends on More Well-Trained Doctors How is better medical care for children to be achieved? In the last analysis, success in this field depends not so much upon the physical facilities of the hospital, the laboratory or the pharmacy as upon the judgment and skill of the individual physician. This skill is a result of training and experience. Deficiencies in Pediatric Training As a step toward better and more evenly distributed health services for children the American Academy of Pediatrics has conducted a nation-wide study of all factors involved in the medical care of children in the United States—hospitals, community health services, private practice of physicians and dentists, and pediatric education. The preliminary findings of the Study reveal a startling lack of adequate training of a considerable portion of both general practitioners and pediatricians.