kids: from physiology to sociology

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Thank you Dr Sanjay Gupta, I asked if there were any paediatric surgeons on
the list.

Your answer was nuanced, however:

"Kids are not that much different from adults." They are both human, after
all, although W.C. Fields disagreed.

"Correspondingly larger surface area and need to be better warmed up than
adult counterparts" sounds like a physiologic difference to me. That does
not make a child a different animal, just a bit different and the
difference, I believe, has to be taken into account, not only in calculating
doses. However, I repeat, the principles of management remain the same.

And from physiology, the discussion then went on to sociology, and the cut
off point of admission to a paediatric ward. Physiology is not social
behaviour as several posts have noted. Although, in certain societies there
has been an attempt to equate the two: not only Bar or Bat Mitzvah, but also
ritual circumcision of boys (and excision of girls in some places) at
puberty. These are taken as collective rites of passage -- the boys go out
into the forest as a group and return to the village to be circumcised
together, as a group -- the passage being from childhood to adulthood.
Adolescence does not exist in these societies; one reason for the marriage
of girls at the age of 12 or 13 in places such as Afghanistan or Somalia
etc. Also, the widespread employment of youth as "child soldiers", an
experience you do want to miss.

South Africa probably has it right (no surprise there) as Tim has mentioned.
The problem is in the West.

-- 
christos giannou
Monemvasia Lakonia
23070 Greece
tel & fax: (++30) 27320-61772
mob: (++30) 69 74 83 28 18

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