Personal experience in pediatric emergency medicine training in Canada and China

Currently, pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) as practiced in many developed countries is different from ours in China. Chinese pediatric emergency medicine is just children's internal medicine and does not include general surgery, ear-nose-throat, etc. If children have an emergency condition that require specialized treatments they need to go to different departments. However in Canada, the pediatric emergency physicians will first treat the patients whatever the condition, then, if it is a complicated sub specialty problem, they will consult the specialist or let the patient see the specialist later. In addition, resuscitation is done in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in China, but it is done in the emergency room in Canada. This article compares the differences in the pediatric emergency systems in Canada and China and also introduces the international standard system of pediatric triage.