CHAPTER 1. HISTORY OF PEDIATRICS. MOTHER AND CHILD CARE IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

GENERAL ISSUES OF PEDIATRICS. ORGANIZATION

AND STRUCTURE OF PEDIATRIC SERVICE

Pediatrics (Greek - παιδίον - child and ιατρεία - treatment) is, according to the founder of Russian Pediatrics S.F. Khotovitsky (1847), "a science about distinctive features in the structure, functions and diseases of the child's body and based thereupon the healthcare and treatment of children". The primary goal of Pediatrics is healthcare and, in the case of illness, health improvement of the child, which allows him to fully realize his innate vital potential.

General practice doctor/family doctor is a therapist or pediatrician, with special training in the specialty "Family medicine", which gives him the right to consult all the family members, regardless of their gender or age in any medical issue (HENT, orthopedics, surgery, ophthalmology, neurology etc.), providing preventive, curative and rehabilitative assistance. He enlists other specialists for assistance only in exceptional cases.

The pediatric science and family doctor practice include, first of all, developmental pediatrics and primary prevention. The second component is curative pediatrics, or pediatrics of diseases (table 1.1). Primary prevention means determining the potential of a child's health - with what degree of health, physical and intellectual abilities, with what guarantees of active longevity the child enters adulthood. Treatment of sick children is a difficult task due to the following features: anatomical and physiological characteristics of the child's body, the high probability of complications and inadequate reactions not only to the disease itself, but to most medications used in the treatment process.

Table 1.1. Components of pediatric science and practice