This thesis analyses transformations in pediatrics during its history as an organized medical specialty. Pediatricians emerged in a period of high infant and child mortality and poor public health to fight disease and treat difficult feeding problems. After mortality rates began to decline they turned to prevention, supervising the normal growth and development of healthy children. However, as prevention absorbed an ever larger proportion of their time, they became bored and dissatisfied. During the 1970s, competing groups of child health care providers such as pediatric nurse practitioners and family practitioners exacerbated pediatricians' difficulties. Worried about their possible disappearance as primary care specialists, pediatricians sought a new mission in ministering to children's non-physical problems. The "new pediatrics" focuses on the behavioral and psychosocial problems of children and adolescents. This study contributes to understanding how professions respond to changes and threats in their environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.75973 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Pawluch, Dorothy, 1953- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Sociology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000919521, proquestno: AAINL52507, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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