title: Education for primary care of children. A report to Abraham and Mary Jacobi.
abstract: Abraham and Mary Jacobi, two general physicians from widely differing backgrounds, shared a lifelong commitment to the health and welfare of children. Together, they planted the seeds of the modern specialty of pediatrics. Education for the care of children was a major focus of the Jacobis' lives. In their day, emphasis in pediatric practice was on infant feeding and on ameliorating the appalling level of mortality from infectious diseases. In subsequent decades, advances in knowledge about diseases and in basic medical science enabled physicians to deal confidently with these problems, so that emphasis shifted to diagnosis and treatment of less common conditions and, most recently, to recognition of the pediatrician's role in treatment of psychosocial disorders. Throughout the evolution of the medical education process, the role of the pediatrician as child advocate, so efficiently modeled by the Jacobis, has continued to be a major theme.
mesh_terms: D003363:Cost Control; D003479:Curriculum; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D049672:History, 19th Century; D009518:New York; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000193:education* / Q000266:history; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history*; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods