What are the jobs performed by pediatricians?

A pediatrician is a doctor who specializes in child care. They provide health care to children as well as adolescents. As children grow, they have health requirements which are mostly different from those of adults.

Although in general all pediatricians are considered to be the same job, but depending upon their further specialized area of functioning, they are categorized into following categories.

General pediatricians: The type of health services a general pediatrician would provide are more like a physician (doctors that provide treatment to adults). Childhood exams and physicals, conducting baby checkups, giving vaccinations, and diagnosing various disorders which may not require special care, but require monitoring are few of the major responsibilities of a general pediatrician.

They work for private clinics or for well-established hospitals, where they work with surgeons, family physicians and other medical staff.

Specialized pediatricians: A pediatric may also be specialized in a particular medical functioning. Some of the fields include emergency pediatric medicines, prenatal/neonatal medicine, pediatric oncology and pediatric cardiology. These are the fields which are known as sub specialties. If a person wants to be a specialized pediatrician, then he or she has to achieve additional certifications. Usually sub-specialty field requires around 3 additional years of going through training in addition to pediatric residency.

Family pediatrician: Family pediatrics is someone who provides consultation regarding child care. They spend most of their time consulting parents about adolescents, infants and toddlers. They are the primary source of answering the questions parents usually have about children’s health.

They advise parents about different types of health concerns amongst infants and children including problems associated with breastfeeding. They also tell how to assess child development and growth.

Their consultation is very important for ensuring proper child development and getting right advices and treatment about children’s health problems.

Without consulting a family pediatric, you may not appropriately take care of your toddlers, so go ahead and find a specialist for ensuring healthiness of your child.