ABSTRACT
Paediatrics concerns child development and childhood diseases (Osborn et al., 2005). It involves the development and care of children, and ‘the nature and treatment of diseases of children’ (Anderson, 2007, p. 1421). Typically, paediatric textbooks may cover paediatric principles using a developmental approach, and paediatric conditions using a systems approach such as neurology, metabolism, and orthopaedics (e.g. Candy, Davies and Ross, 2001). Underpinning paediatrics (and medicine as a whole) are disciplines such as human anatomy and physiology, pathology and pharmacology, which inform clinical medicine as it applies to children. A paediatrician is a physician who has specialised in the treatment of children.
