Pediatricians play an important, collaborative role in influencing
factors that can optimize the child health trajectory. For one,
the role and professional responsibility of the pediatrician is greatly
expanded by ever-increasing medical knowledge and new, more powerful
and expensive technologies. In addition, evolving performance guidelines
of health care systems redefine expectations and attributes of the
well-trained pediatrician. These expectations include the areas
of professionalism, systems-based practice, patient care, interpersonal
and communication skills, medical knowledge, and practice-based
learning and improvement. As such, pediatricians of the 21st century,
in striving to improve child health, whether at the individual or
population level, must master a new, important array of knowledge,
skills, and attitudes (Table 1-1).3