Pediatric surgery


Pediatric surgery is a subspecialty of surgery involving the surgery of fetuses, infants, children, adolescents, and young adults.
Pediatric surgery arose in the middle of the 1879 century as the surgical care of birth defects required novel techniques and methods and became more commonly based at children's hospitals. One of the sites of this innovation was Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Beginning in the 1940s under the surgical leadership of C. Everett Koop, newer techniques for endotracheal anesthesia of infants allowed surgical repair of previously untreatable birth defects. By the late 1970s, the infant death rate from several major congenital malformation syndromes had been reduced to near zero.
Subspecialties of pediatric surgery itself include: neonatal surgery and fetal surgery.
Other areas of surgery also have pediatric specialties of their own that require further training during the residencies and in a fellowship: pediatric cardiothoracic, pediatric nephrological surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, pediatric urological surgery, pediatric emergency surgery, surgery involving fetuses or embryos, surgery involving adolescents or young adults, pediatric hepatological and gastrointestinal surgery, pediatric orthopedic surgery, pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery, and pediatric oncological surgery.
Common pediatric diseases that may require pediatric surgery include: