Paediatrics
Children are not small adults. They can suffer from illnesses that only occur in childhood. Medication works differently in children than in adults, and treatment must always take into account physical and mental development. This is why children and adolescents are treated by specially trained doctors, paediatricians, from birth until they reach adulthood at around 18 years of age. The corresponding specialist field of paediatrics and adolescent medicine is often referred to as paediatrics.
The specialised disciplines
Nursing has also adapted to the special needs of sick children and adolescents. Paediatric nurses are specially trained to care for children of all ages and stages of development.
As in adult medicine, specialist disciplines have also developed in paediatric and adolescent medicine that deal with the diseases of individual organs or specific groups of diseases. For example, there are specialists for stomach and intestinal diseases or cardiovascular diseases. Other doctors treat the fortunately rare cancers in children and adolescents. And if an operation is necessary, specially trained paediatric surgeons, urologists and paediatric neurosurgeons are on hand.
The care
The smaller the children, the younger the adolescents, the more important the parents are for the recovery of the young patients. This is why paediatric and adolescent medicine, including at Ulm University Hospital, attaches great importance to involving parents in the care of their children in hospital. Particularly in the case of small children, a parent is often also admitted. The paediatricians also try to keep the inpatient hospital stay as short as possible or to carry out examinations and treatments on an outpatient basis.
At Ulm University Hospital, all the important disciplines of paediatric and adolescent medicine are available. The paediatric clinics and departments work very closely together so that experts from other specialist disciplines can be called in for treatment at any time.
- Premature babies (neonatology)
- Haematology
- Cardiovascular diseases (cardiology)
- Hormonal diseases, diabetes, variants of sexual development and lipodystrophy
- Immunology and stem cell transplantation
- Child and adolescent psychiatry
- Paediatric surgery
- Paediatric orthopaedics
- Paediatric urology
- Cancer diseases (oncology)
- Gastrointestinal diseases (gastroenterology)
- Cystic fibrosis, pneumology, allergology
- Kidney diseases (nephrology)
- Paediatric neurosurgery
- Rheumatology and autoimmune diseases
- Social Paediatric Centre and Paediatric Neurology
- Metabolism
