Society

Training fails to produce pediatricians

By Cheng Yingqi (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-02-22 06:57

BEIJING - The growth in the number of pediatricians in China has remained stagnant in recent years, and experts have blamed the training system for medical staff.

China's pediatricians are among the practitioners that are in the shortest supply in the country's health system.

According to the latest statistics, by 2008 the country had 61,700 pediatricians for 230 million children under the age of 14, according to Zhu Zonghan, head of the pediatric division of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association.

It means every 1,000 children share 0.2598 pediatricians. In comparison, every 1,000 children in the United States share 1.4558 pediatricians, Zhu said.

"We need another 200,000 pediatricians to reach the US ratio," Zhu told Beijing Times.

"Even if we halve the target, we will have to bridge the gap by training 10,000 pediatricians every year in the coming decade."

But the fact is that only 5,000 new pediatricians have been trained in the past 15 years.

Xu Pengfei, a pediatrician at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital who sees 2,200 to 2,800 children a month, said that the training of pediatricians is a long process, as pediatricians are required to have superior abilities in diagnosis.

"Child patients cannot make themselves clear, so you have to be extremely careful with diagnosing them," Xu said.

A student has to spend five years studying clinical medicine before choosing a certain medical department to specialize in.

In the case of pediatricians, medical graduates need to spend at least three more years of study to become qualified, Xu said.

The problem is that being a pediatrician is not the first choice for medical graduates.

"Few of my classmates chose the pediatrician department because the income is higher in other departments," said Chen Yuanfan, 24, a fifth-year medical student in Beijing.

Chen said that, due to additional operation and examination charges, doctors at surgical and obstetrics-gynecology departments earn more money and have better chances for promotion in general hospitals than pediatricians.

"Unless you were trained to be a pediatrician from the moment you enrolled in college, you do not have sufficient motivation to devote yourself to that career," Chen, the medical student, said.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Health, the number of pediatricians in China decreased from 65,995 in 2000 to 63,740 by 2005. Xu is worried that as experienced pediatricians retire, there will not be enough younger pediatricians to maintain quality treatment.

China Daily

(China Daily 02/22/2011 page5)