Personal qualities which suit paediatrics
- Patience, sensitivity, emotional resilience
- Communication skills
- Team working
- Informality
- Sense of humour
- Flexible, opportunistic
- Committed to child health
Hopefully the experience of being part of paediatric services in hospital and the community will have given you insight into what the specialty involves, and whether you have the right personal qualities. It is obviously important to enjoy working with children, and most jobs require a combination of flexibility and attention to detail.
30.3 Career options
Paediatrics is one of the few careers when you can still be a generalist. Most paediatricians have a special interest, and there is a huge range of subspecialties, which are usually based in tertiary centres.
Careers in paediatrics
- General paediatrician (district general or teaching hospital)
- Community paediatrician
- Neonatologist
- Subspecialty paediatrician
- Cardiology
- Child mental health
- Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
- Diabetes and endocrinology
- Emergency medicine
- Gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition
- Haematology
- Immunology, infectious disease (IID) and allergy
- Inherited metabolic medicine
- Intensive care
- Nephrology
- Neurodisability
- Neurology
- Oncology
- Palliative medicine
- Respiratory medicine
- Rheumatology
- Cardiology
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