Pediatric surgery

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Pediatric surgery (AE) or paediatric surgery (BE) is a subspecialty of surgery involving the surgery of fetuses, infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. Many pediatric surgeons practice at children's hospitals.

Pediatric surgeons have completed a general surgery residency (medicine), then complete 2 years (or more according countries) of subspecialty fellowship training. After completion of specialty training in pediatric surgery, the surgeon is then eligible for certification by the American Board of Surgery in the United States. In Canada it leads to eligibility for Certification by and Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. In Australia and New Zealand it leads to eligibility for Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

In order to become a pediatric surgeon in Mexico, two years of residency in Pediatrics are required, before one can start four years of pediatric surgery.

Pediatric surgery arose in the middle of the 20th century as the surgical care of birth defects required novel techniques and methods and became more commonly based at children's hospitals. One of the sites of this innovation was Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Beginning in the 1940s under the surgical leadership of C. Everett Koop, newer techniques for endotracheal anesthesia of infants allowed surgical repair of previously untreatable birth defects. By the late 1970s, the infant death rate from several major congenital malformation syndromes had been reduced to near zero.

Subspecialties of pediatric surgery itself include: neonatal surgery and fetal surgery.

Other areas of surgery also have pediatric specialties of their own that require further training: pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, pediatric nephrology, pediatric neurosurgery, and pediatric urological surgery.

Common pediatric diseases that may require pediatric surgery include