2006 Articles

Pediatricians Providing Sophisticated Care Under Extreme Conditions

Johnston, Carden; Redlener, Irwin E.

We stand in awe of the pediatricians and other colleagues who met the challenge of maintaining care of ill children during a major disaster even while their hospital was being evacuated and while improvising and facilitating mass transport. The challenge in front of us is how to be sure that the children whose families have been impacted economically, medically, and emotionally by Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of the disaster will attain their optimal mental, physical, and emotional health. That is our goal and the mission of the AAP. Pediatricians who rose to the acute need of children during Hurricane Katrina will be rising to the chronic needs of children over the next decade, helping those children become the best adults they can be. That is what pediatrics is all about.