Drugs for the doctor's bag: 2--children

In September 2005, we published Drugs for the doctor's bag: 1--Adults, recognising the fact that there is still a need for most GPs to carry well-equipped bags, even though many have given up responsibility for out-of-hours services. Here we suggest medicines that a GP might want to have available for use in an emergency or for the acute treatment of children and adolescents, updatingour previous advice. As with adults, it is not our intention to imply that every GP must carry every drug mentioned. Some of the drugs will probably only be used by rural GPs who do not have access to immediate emergency care. Whenever a medicine is first mentioned, our suggested formulation is included in brackets. Unless otherwise stated, the doses given are all from the BNF for Children. We enclose with this issue a card summarising parenteral doses (for adults and children) of drugs for medical emergencies; this card includes the BNF table of ideal weight for age.