Pediatrics 

About: Pediatrics is an academic journal published by American Academy of Pediatrics. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Population & Poison control. It has an ISSN identifier of 0031-4005. Over the lifetime, 39017 publications have been published receiving 2387337 citations. The journal is also known as: pædiatrics & pediatric medicine.

National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards.

Abstract: Many members of the Academy of Pediatrics seem to be generally unaware of the fact that your Academy has participated for ten years in a very interesting and valuable organization, the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS). The NCCLS has only three kinds of members: professional organizations, industrial (clinical laboratory instruments and supplies), and government agencies (CDC, FDA, NBS, NIH). Each member is represented by one delegate and one alternate. At present there are close to 110 members, of which 20 are professional societies.

Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk

Abstract: Considerable advances have occurred in recent years in the scientific knowledge of the benefits of breastfeeding, the mechanisms underlying these benefits, and in the clinical management of breastfeeding. This policy statement on breastfeeding replaces the 1997 policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics and reflects this newer knowledge and the supporting publications. The benefits of breastfeeding for the infant, the mother, and the community are summarized, and recommendations to guide the pediatrician and other health care professionals in assisting mothers in the initiation and maintenance of breastfeeding for healthy term infants and high-risk infants are presented. The policy statement delineates various ways in which pediatricians can promote, protect, and support breastfeeding not only in their individual practices but also in the hospital, medical school, community, and nation.

Expert Committee Recommendations Regarding the Prevention, Assessment, and Treatment of Child and Adolescent Overweight and Obesity: Summary Report

Abstract: To revise 1998 recommendations on childhood obesity, an Expert Committee, comprised of representatives from 15 professional organizations, appointed experienced scientists and clinicians to 3 writing groups to review the literature and recommend approaches to prevention, assessment, and treatment. Because effective strategies remain poorly defined, the writing groups used both available evidence and expert opinion to develop the recommendations. Primary care providers should universally assess children for obesity risk to improve early identification of elevated BMI, medical risks, and unhealthy eating and physical activity habits. Providers can provide obesity prevention messages for most children and suggest weight control interventions for those with excess weight. The writing groups also recommend changing office systems so that they support efforts to address the problem. BMI should be calculated and plotted at least annually, and the classification should be integrated with other information such as growth pattern, familial obesity, and medical risks to assess the child’s obesity risk. For prevention, the recommendations include both specific eating and physical activity behaviors, which are likely to promote maintenance of healthy weight, but also the use of patient-centered counseling techniques such as motivational interviewing, which helps families identify their own motivation for making change. For assessment, the recommendations include methods to screen for current medical conditions and for future risks, and methods to assess diet and physical activity behaviors. For treatment, the recommendations propose 4 stages of obesity care; the first is brief counseling that can be delivered in a health care office, and subsequent stages require more time and resources. The appropriateness of higher stages is influenced by a patient’s age and degree of excess weight. These recommendations recognize the importance of social and environmental change to reduce the obesity epidemic but also identify ways healthcare providers and health care systems can be part of broader efforts.

The rise of professionalism

Abstract: Professional work conditions (and not only the general ideology) foster individualism. The professional9s sense of power and authority flows not only from his actual command over special knowledge but also from his control over interpersonal situations. The first established professions—medicine, law, the ministry, and architecture—were typically concerned with the problems of individuals. Only indirectly did they define society as their client. Today, individualized service becomes an ideological remedy for the ills of a social situation, a screen for the social problems caused by the bureaucratic systems through which services are delivered—most notably in the medical and teaching professions. The ideological insistence on individual aspects, the neglect of the whole, merges with specialization to confine the professional in an ideological conception of his role: the importance of narrow responsibilities is consciously and unconsciously emphasized, exaggerating the "dignity" of the functions. The dominant ideology attributes to professionals and experts special prestige as well as "moral and intellectual superiority": sharing in this ideology, professionals can easily mystify to themselves their actual power. Moreover, they are locked into conformity with the role society offers them to play—locked in by their vocational choice, by the particular mystique of each profession, and by their whole sense of social identity. Finally, the technocratic ideology of science and objectivity excludes from the specialist9s concern the social and political consequences of his acts. Nowhere is this truer than in the technical and scientific fields.