The development of adolescent health and medicine as a medical discipline lags behind in Europe compared with other regions of the world. This study aims to evaluate the structure and content of adolescent medicine and health training curricula for medical students, paediatricians, and other primary care physicians in the European region. A questionnaire survey was sent by e-mail to experts in the field from 36 European countries, addressing the content of adolescent health issues. Data was obtained from all 36 countries. At the undergraduate level, seven countries reported some mandatory stand-alone teaching (sessions dealing specifically with adolescents), while seven countries reported optional stand-alone teaching. In only 7 out of 36 countries were issues critical to adolescents covered as stand-alone sessions. At the postgraduate level, 15 countries delivered stand-alone mandatory training sessions to primary, secondary, or tertiary care paediatricians, covering most of the five critical areas listed in the questionnaire. In another 13 countries, such sessions were not mandatory and were inexistent in eight of them. The coverage among school physicians was similar but was much lower among general practitioners.
Conclusion: Paediatric associations and academic institutions should advocate for a better coverage of adolescent health and medicine in the training curricula of health care providers.
What is known: • In most European countries, adolescent medicine is still poorly represented as a discipline. • Experts have recently published recommendations regarding what form the structure and content of a training curriculum in this field should take. | |
What is new: • This paper gives information on the extent and content of training in adolescent medicine and health as currently offered within under- and postgraduate European training curricula, in terms of stand-alone mandatory (versus optional) sessions. • In many European countries, both medical students and residents are poorly exposed to the basic knowledge and skills pertaining to adolescent health care. |
In recent years, there has been a movement toward more judicious use of computed tomography (CT) imaging in an attempt to limit exposure of pediatric patients to ionizing radiation. The Image Gently Alliance and like-minded movements began advocating for safe and high-quality pediatric imaging worldwide in the late 2000s.
ObjectiveIn the context of these efforts, we evaluate CT utilization rates in the pediatric emergency department at a major academic medical center.
Materials and methodsWe tracked utilization in several categories of CT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasonography (US) between July 2008 and June 2017 and compared them with utilization rates from 2000 to 2006.
ResultsA total of 4,955 pediatric patients underwent a total of 5,973 CT scans, 2,775 US studies and 293 MRI scans while in the pediatric emergency department during the 2008–2017 study period. We observed decreases in CT scans across all categories, ranging from a 19% decrease in abdominal CT to a 66% decrease in chest CT. Relatively greater decreases in CT scans were observed in patients younger than 3 years of age as compared to older children and adolescents. Abdominal and pelvic US increased. Brain MRI also increased over the final two years of the study.
ConclusionCT utilization decreased throughout the 2008–2017 study period.
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