A quest for identity, authority, and status: the development of paediatrics in Australia

In Europe and the United States paediatrics was well entrenched by the end of the nineteenth century; whereas in Australia the specialty only attained legitimacy) by the end of the twentieth. Here paediatricians experienced difficulties in convincing the medical profession and society that children were different to adults and therefore required special care. In seeking a clear identity as specialists for children they were reluctant to distance themselves from their origins in general, predominantly adult, medicine, which, until the 1970s, followed British ideologies in opposing specialisation. There were also local socio-economic factors, adverse market forces, and competition in the field of child health. Even when the problems were largely overcome and new scientific knowledge gave paediatricians authority and status, they were slow to establish an effective professional association. Eventually, however, they achieved their aims with the creation, in 1998, of the Paediatric Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.