A New Pediatrics for a New Century

Is the field of pediatrics doing all that it can for the health of children? Many think that the field has gone off track and that we could do better. These articles highlight some different ways of judging the successes and failures of pediatrics in the United States today. The choices that we face are stark. To change the system, we would need to recalibrate the balance between utilitarian approaches to resource allocation, such as might be dictated by cost-effectiveness analyses, and deontologic approaches that prioritize unbreakable commitments or promises to individuals. These changes would entail large-scale social engineering projects to reshape our health care system, our educational system, and our public health system. A failure to change, however, might perpetuate a system that is not doing all it can for the health of America’s children and the society they will form.