[The paediatrician and social problems]

We have witnessed dramatic scientific, technological and social advances in the first decade of the XXI century. New sociological realities have enforced the rights of children, the family and gender and inequalities need to be faced under the criteria of equality in a multicultural context. It is a time to boost the overall view of childhood, to put the phonendoscope on the minor and the family, to assess the complexity of facts, such as abuse from its many facets, to shorten the distance between patients, increasing our cultural competence and to critically reflect on medicalising life as a social symptom and their possible consequences for children.