The pediatric surgeon is a specialist surgeon who deals with organizing and providing surgery in pediatric subjects and therefore provides a series of general surgical skills, applied to the problems and needs of subjects who are still in of development and requiring different specific skills to the same interventions applied to subjects who are already in adulthood.
The pediatric surgeon takes care of children between the ages of zero and eighteen who are suffering from various pathologies of surgical interest and that concern in this case different sectors such as:
General pediatric surgery;
Neonatal surgery
Gastroenterology surgery
Pediatric urology and transplants
Pediatric oncological surgery;
Thoracic and airway surgery;
Neonatal and pediatric mini-invasive surgery;
Emergency surgery;
Management and placement of central venous catheters.
The Pediatric Surgeon also performs instrumental and endoscopic diagnostic tests in some specific sectors such as the gastroenterological, urological and brancoscopic sectors. In addition, it can perform advanced functional investigations such as:
Ph-metria, or a specialized examination that registers for twenty-four hours the quantity of acid present in the esophagus, in the stomach or in both organs and studies those pathologies linked to the return of stomach acid, the so-called gastroesophageal reflux;
Impendenzometry, an examination that is generally performed by a specialist in otolaryngology through which information is obtained about the health and functionality of the ear and which serves to allow the evaluation of the elasticity of the eardrum and of the ossicles chain responsible for the hearing function;
Uroflowmetry is a functional examination that allows to study and evaluate urinary flow during urination: it is a simple investigation, considered essential in patients who complain of micturition disorders.
Cystomanometry is a uro-dynamic examination that consists in recording changes in intravesical pressure as a function of volume and is performed both during filling and emptying of the bladder.
Anorectal manometry, a specialized examination that evaluates the pressure and functioning of the anal sphincter and the sensitivity of the rectal ampulla and is a useful examination to investigate some pathologies such as constipation, therefore difficulties in evacuating or even problems of fecal incontinence, anal fissure, rectal prolapse, hemorrhoids or pains and rectal spasms. This examination is performed before the rectal interventions and the various rehabilitative therapies.
It also has the responsibility of carrying out the preparation of the patient and the real operation of the organ as regards organ transplants, such as kidney transplantations, liver-kidney and pancreatic transplants, trying to work in the best possible way, trying to satisfy as much as possible the needs of young patients and their families who rely on the professional.
The pediatric surgeon carries out his profession both in the clinic where he performs most of the first pediatric surgical visits, also organizing accesses for pre-operative clinical evaluations and discussing the methods of hospitalization and possible operating techniques and in the clinic where the patient inpatient and where the pediatric surgeon makes patients hospitalized after they have undergone surgery or situations in which children need further diagnostic tests that it would not be possible to perform in the clinic.
To become a pediatric surgeon, it is necessary that the candidate undertakes a university career, enrolling in the degree course in Medicine and Surgery, degree course that has a legal duration of six years and whose enrollment is subject to a test of entrance. Subsequently, after obtaining the degree, the aspiring pediatric surgeon will need to support the State examination for the qualification to the medical profession as well as the registration in the provincial register of doctors, surgeons and dentists. The state exam is based on two written tests that provide for the solution of ninety multiple choice questions as well as a practical training to be carried out directly in the department for three months which must be continuous in the medical department, in the department of surgery and at the general medical department. Once the qualification is acquired, the pediatric surgeon will have to enroll in the specialist school in Pediatric Surgery, with a legal duration of four years, in which he will be able to learn the technical notions to best cure his patients. The aspiring pediatrician surgeons, moreover, are doctors whose preparation nece