Pediatrician Essay

Pediatricians are not just doctors that one sees for injury or sickness but someone that guides a person in life from their infancy to their adulthood. Pediatricians are physicians who diagnose, treat, and help prevent children's diseases and injuries. They are essential in raising the young to be healthy and in helping them make the right decisions about their bodies. The care that is given by a pediatrician is indispensable to the lives of children and helps lighten the burden on parents. Although being a pediatrician requires long hours and a load of mental pressure and stress, it is a fulfilling career with the opportunity to impact the world in a positive way.
To better understand why an individual would decide to become a pediatrician, one must first ascertain how this career began and what it has become. Studies on the treatment of children began thousands of years ago, but pediatrics as an occupation and field of study did not begin until approximately two hundred years ago in Germany and France. Larger populations in the two countries led to more specialized needs, one of which was care for children. “One of the earliest, if not the first, centers for pediatrics was the Society for Infant Therapeutics” (Leucke). Dr. Abraham Jacobi was one of the first and most prominent pioneers of American pediatrics when he came from Germany to New York. He established the pediatrics chair at New York Medical College in 1861, organized multiple pediatric societies, publicized pediatric journals, and developed children’s departments in several New York hospitals. “The first separate pediatrics hospital was established in Philadelphia in 1855. The American Association of Pediatrics was established in 1930 and the American Board of Pediat...

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...certain amount of time depending on the field (“Pediatrician”).
To become an official pediatrician, one must obtain an M.D. degree, take a licensing examination, complete a one to two year internship, and complete at least five years of residency, or seven years if they want board certification in a specialty (“Physicians”).
Pediatrics can be a tiresome and stressful job, but the feeling one gets after seeing a smile on a child’s face makes all the difference in the world. To know that one has made an impact on a child makes a twenty-four hour shift at a hospital or studying for a board test worth it. Just like the rest of the world, pediatricians strive to make an impression. Their legacy is the hope inspired in every sick or suffering child’s heart. At the end of the day, changing a child’s life for the better is the greatest reward any pediatrician can receive.