Pediatrician comes from the Greek words "pais" (child) and "iatros" (doctor or healer).  Pediatrics (adjective) is a combination of those words and means "healer or doctor of children".  The suffix "iatrics" also comes from the Greek and is used to form nouns that mean "healing" or "the medical practice of.  Therefore, pediatrics is "the medical practice of healing children", and since the Greek root word "ger" means "old people", geriatrics means "the medical practice of healing old people". 

If you're lucky enough to have a child or children, you'll want to find the best pediatrician available in your area to take them to so the pediatrician can give them routine checkups to monitor their health and progress as they're growing up, as well as to treat them when they're sick or injured.  

You two have covered the word of the day, pretty much, thank you.

My search was centered in my province, Quebec. I have not needed to see a doctor for over fifty years. So no, I do not have a family doctor. Looking on line this morning, I found that over a quarter of Quebecers do not have one. Mainly because GPs are over loaded already. Which is why our emergency rooms are usually, swamped. The only reason I mention any of this, is because our word today.

1 hour ago, Bill W said:

If you're lucky enough to have a child or children, you'll want to find the best pediatrician available in your area to take them to so the pediatrician can give them routine checkups to monitor their health and progress as they're growing up, as well as to treat them when they're sick or injured.  

This is the shocker and I think a scary thing I learned this morning.

Healthy Quebec kids can no longer see pediatricians, must now find a family doctor | CTV News

Sounds okay, I think not!!!!! Especially when you understand that over 2 million Quebecers, don't have a family doctor, not for the lack of trying to find one that will take on new patients. So I guess it is back to the olden days, if you can find a regular, ordinary doctor to take you on, good luck.

Oh, did I mention the dog and pony show they want you to go through, before you crawl into the ER.

If you don't have a family doctor, Quebec wants you to use this system before going to ER | CBC News

sandrewn

Widening the discussion from US and Canada to Australia you may be surprised to know that paediatricians (yes we spell it differently) are regarded as medical specialists here. That means a child needs a referral from a family doctor (General Practitioner {GP} in our context) to see a paediatrician. Also certain medications, such as for ADHD can only be prescribed by a paediatrician. Our approach is that you first go to your GP and if they can't treat you, they will refer you to a specialist or directly to hospital. Not perfect because of a shortage of doctors in all areas but generally it works.

1 hour ago, sandrewn said:

This is the shocker and I think a scary thing I learned this morning.

Healthy Quebec kids can no longer see pediatricians, must now find a family doctor | CTV News

Sounds okay, I think not!!!!! Especially when you understand that over 2 million Quebecers, don't have a family doctor, not for the lack of trying to find one that will take on new patients. So I guess it is back to the olden days, if you can find a regular, ordinary doctor to take you on, good luck.

Oh, did I mention the dog and pony show they want you to go through, before you crawl into the ER.

If you don't have a family doctor, Quebec wants you to use this system before going to ER | CBC News

 

sandrewn

Whoa, that is a shocker and seems to go against any logical reasoning that I can come up with.  I'm certainly glad that  neither I, nor any of my family, live in Quebec.