Pediatric hospital

A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children and adolescents. Most children's hospitals can serve children from birth up to the age of 18, or in some instances, children's hospitals' doctors may treat children until they finish high school. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties.

Children's hospitals are characterized by greater attention to the psychosocial support of children and their families. Some children and young people have to spend relatively long periods in hospital, so having access to play and teaching staff can also be an important part of their care. With local partnerships this can include trips to local botanical gardens, zoo, and public libraries for instance.

In addition to psychosocial support, children's hospitals have the added benefit of being staffed by professionals who are trained in treating children. A medical doctor that undertakes vocational training in paediatrics must also be accepted for membership by a professional college before they can practice paediatrics. These include the Royal Australasian College of Physicians RACP, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health RCPCH, and the American Board of Pediatrics. In New Zealand the RACP offers vocational training in paediatrics. Once RACP training is completed the doctor is awarded the Fellowship of the RACP (FRACP) in paediatrics. While many normal hospitals can treat children adequately, pediatric specialists may be a better choice when it comes to treating rare afflictions that may prove fatal or severely detrimental to young children, in some cases before birth. Also, many children's hospitals will continue to see children with rare illnesses into adulthood, allowing for a continuity of care.

Prior to the 19th century hospital reforms, the well-being of the child was thought to be in the hands of the mother; therefore, there was little discussion of children's medicine, and as a result next to no widespread formal institutions which focused on healing children. There were however centres which focused on helping abandoned children and offering care in hopes that these children might survive into adulthood. Some examples include orphanages, dispensaries, and foundling hospitals. Florence's Hospital of the Innocent (Ospedale degli Innocenti) was originally a charity based orphanage which opened in 1445; its aim was to nurse sick and abandoned infants back to health. A later example and better established institution whose goal it was to help rehabilitate infants was the Foundling Hospital founded by Thomas Coram in 1741. Foundling hospitals were set up to receive abandoned infants, nurse them back to health, teach them a trade or skill, and integrate them back into society. Coram's foundling hospital was revolutionary because it was one of the United Kingdoms first children charities. Moreover, it was largely made successful by the powerful people who donated money to the hospital. Coram's hospital would eventually be faced with the fact that the number of infants needing care outweighed their hospitals capacity. In order to accommodate the number of children in need, there were attempts to set up similar hospitals throughout the UK; they ultimately were unsuccessful due to the lack of funding. Simultaneously, dispensaries which were also funded by donations were being opened in order to provide medicine and medical attention to those who could not afford private care. Dispensaries and foundling hospitals were the earliest forms of what would later become children's hospitals. The establishing of the Foundling Hospital by Thomas Coram was a direct response to the high infant mortality rate in London, England. Although foundling hospitals acknowledged the high infant mortality rate, infant mortality would not be addressed in a wide spread way until the early 19th century when children's hospitals would begin to open in Vienna, Moscow, Prague, Berlin, and various other major cities throughout Europe.

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