Chinese universities will re-introduce pediatrics as a undergraduate major this year. The move is to ease the severe shortage of pediatricians in the country, to prepare for possible baby booms brought by the second child policy.
A sick child is any parent's nightmare. This 11-month-old baby with a tongue problem has to wait for months to see a doctor.
"It's indeed hard to see a good doctor. I waited for this appointment for three months. I'll have to wait another four months to see the doctor again," Engineer Xu Zhe said.
The health authority says, there is about one pediatrician for every two-thousand kids in China. But in the US, the same number of kids share three doctors.
The authority vows to add about 28,000 pediatricians by 2020.
"We'll support the Education Ministry to cultivate undergraduate pediatrics majors, expand enrolment and improve quality. We'll increase residential pediatrician training from 4000 every year to 5000," Jin Shenguo, vice education director of Nat'l Health & Family Planning Commission, said.
After 17 years, paediatrics is returning to China's universities as an undergraduate major. From this July, eight universities will enrol students for this degree, starting a strong push to provide more urgently needed pediatricians with the advent of the second child policy.
The country aims to ensure there's at least one university in every province offering pediatric major by 2020. But an education official says students need more incentive to take up the profession.
"The shortage of pediatricians is due to heavy workload, high risk, low salary, making it hard to attract graduates. Departments are working on key policies to improve the appeal of the job," Wang Qiming, director of Education Ministry's Medical Education Dept., said.
With the government's big push, doctors hope they don't need to treat as many as 200 children a day. And parents like Xu hope they won't have to wait for so long for such a brief appointment.
