Pediatric Emergencies

"The majority of children seen in the emergency department are cared for by providers without pediatric subspecialty training. Most emergency physicians are relatively comfortable with both medical and traumatic resuscitation in adults due to significant exposure and experience. However, caring for the sick (or possibly sick) child is a high stakes event and often is more stressful than the critically ill adult patient. Dosing and equipment sizes differ, differential diagnoses vary based on age, physician knowledge base may have less breadth and depth of less common conditions, and there is often lack of experience resuscitating children. Training and experience provides a specialized relative comfort in critically ill patients. But emergency trainees, physicians, and other providers without additional specialty pediatric training commonly express a distinct discomfort in the care of both common pediatric conditions as well as in the evaluation and management of critically ill children"--