Non-medical People Research Articles

PEDIATRICS AND SOCIETY

IT IS the constant task of the pediatrician to explain medical conditions in understandable language to parents, children and other lay persons. In addition, he is often called upon to give interpretation to nonmedical professional people, such as social workers or juvenile court judges. Particularly frequent and important is the demand and occasion for the pediatrician to help the school teacher to understand the problems of a chronically ill or handicapped child in her class so that she may manage the child to his best interest and may adapt her educational techniques to fit his needs. Then she can feel more confident in her ability to accept into her group a child who is "not normal."

The Pediatric Years

One of the contributions of this book lies in the fact that it gives recognition to the increasing role of many professional nonmedical people working under medical direction in the health supervision and medical care of children. As more attention is being given to the chronic diseases and handicapping conditions of childhood, the contributions of physical and occupational therapists, nurses, nutritionists, medical social workers, special education teachers, rehabilitation counselors, health educators and others take on increasing importance.

On the Statistical Measure of Infectiousness

We all recognise that some diseases are more “catching” than others. Every mother knows that measles is very catching and most people set aside a group of common complaints, measles, mumps, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria—perhaps roughly in that order—as catching complaints. Then again, still keeping ourselves within the circle of ideas of educated non-medical people, one has such complaints as common colds or influenza which one thinks of as running through a house indeed but does not put quite into the measles category, as one feels that factors determine the spread other than mere proximity to a sick person. Lastly, one has some illnesses, gonorrhoea would be a fair example, which everybody recognises to be spread wholly by contagion, almost always by a particular method of contagion, but does not regard as catching at all in the sense that measles and whooping-cough are catching. When we enquire into the reasons of these opinions they will be found, I think, to be these.