ABSTRACT
The story of the new pediatrics is essentially the story of a profession establishing itself on new turf. In the wake of the dramatic declines in childhood mortality and morbidity, and with the growing emphasis on prevention and well-child care, pediatrics faced a crisis. Primary care pediatricians were willing to do some preventive work. But many felt that in providing preventive services, or even in treating children's minor illnesses, they were not practicing their specialty. They saw prevention and well-child care only as a way to subsidize the "real" work of the specialty-the treatment of serious childhood diseases. From their point of view, pediatrics had exhausted_ its mission. Most children in North America were safe from the perils of disease. Those who were seriously sick had hospital-based subspecialists to treat them. Prevention did not justify the continued existence of primary care pediatricians. Primary care pediatrics had become, as one practitioner put it, "a specialty that does not exist" (Wineberg, 1959:1008). The specialty needed a new mission.
