China in dire need of pediatricians

CHINA is short of at least 200,000 pediatricians as the country produced only 5,000 college graduates with a major in pediatrics in the past 15 years, officials from the Shanghai Children's Medical Center said yesterday.

Education by medical schools is not enough to meet the demand and fill an acute shortage of pediatricians in underdeveloped western regions.

In 2000, the morality rate of children under five was 13.8 per 1,000 in cities and 45.7 per 1,000 in rural areas, they said.

Sponsored by Project HOPE, a US-based non-profit foundation, the Shanghai Children's Medical Center launched a pediatrics training program for rural medical workers ten years ago, especially those working in the intensive care unit.

To date, the program has trained more than 200 pediatricians and improved their ICU skills notably. The gap in child mortality has reduced to 5-6 per 1,000 in cities and about 10 per 1,000 in rural areas.

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