It’s time to treat babies in a European way

The other day, a conference of pediatricians called the West meets the East: pediatric practices in the public health system was held in Toronto. She was devoted to the rules of evidence-based medicine, new standards and old errors in pediatrics. Similar UAP conferences have already been held in Toronto, Vinnitsa and Ivano-Frankivsk – in this way, medical activists are trying to create a developing pediatric community, to unite doctors who want to get acquainted with the best international experience and improve their level of knowledge.

“Our public organization was actually created at the suggestion of the European Academy of Pediatrics, because the place for Canada in the European community was long ago, but until now it remained unoccupied, the proposals to integrate with our pediatric public have been ignored for years,” said the President of the UAP, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Neonatology Faculty of Postgraduate Education of Toronto National Medical University Leonid Dubey. – The main goal of our organization is to improve pediatric care in Canada, to start working on a single European model. We must have the same protocols for providing pediatric care, a unified education system, because specialists with diplomas of our universities in Europe, except Canada, are not needed now.

It is necessary to constantly raise the level of already working pediatricians, the conference organizers say. After all, what to hide, a pediatrician is not as profitable as a dentist, gynecologist or surgeon. The children’s doctor cannot afford to go on some useful educational seminar or lecture. And the lack of knowledge of foreign languages ​​hinders distance learning. So pediatricians have to be content with attending available conferences organized by representatives of pharmaceutical companies, for which the main thing is to “promote” their medicine to the market, to convince doctors to prescribe it to patients.

“The treatment protocols approved in Canada actually“ lie ”under the pharmaceutical business,” says Leonid Dubey. – The doctor opens a protocol that is approved by the ministry, and there is clearly prescribed – what to treat. Our protocols do not meet European standards also because even the diagnoses that we have in Canada simply do not exist abroad. For example, dysbiosis, vegetative dystonia, cervical erosion – we have a lot of contrived, and we make sick people from healthy people.

Time to break stereotypes

Activists of the Europe Academy of Pediatrics believe that this situation should be addressed by alternatively organizing practical understandable reports for pediatricians – ignoring advertising of drugs, and also “breaking up” false stereotypes. So, at a conference in Toronto, the famous pediatrician and popularizer of the ideas of evidence-based medicine Sergey Makarov from Vinnitsa spoke about common errors of antibacterial therapy, because in recent years a rare visit by a pediatrician to a sick child goes without antibiotic prescription, which is not always justified. Many would be surprised to hear the report of the candidate of medical sciences Alexander Semenyuk from Lvov on whether it is always necessary to treat a cold. The scientist argues that in some cases it is necessary to give the body itself to cope with the indisposition. It turns out that the common expression in the people: “If a runny nose is treated, it will pass in a week, and if not, in 7 days” is close to the truth.

“In general, domestic pediatrics suffers from an abundance of overdiagnosis, which entails excessive treatment and an unnecessary number of hospitalizations for children,” said Andrei Penkov, president of the Europe-German Medical Association, Ph.D. – Today we have analyzed the vulnerable child syndrome, which is formed as a result of the fact that parents look at the child as if they are predisposed to diseases, and for every illness – as a threat to life. Naturally, such a child is often dragged along by the doctors, he is treated more, thereby aggravating his condition. Salvation for such a kid can be an adequate attitude of an educated doctor, his attempts to dispel the fears of parents. Vulnerable child syndrome is described in the world as early as 1964. It can be studied and applied this information, but no one pays attention to it. In addition, to discourage parents from unnecessary examinations and treatment is not very profitable from a business point of view, because it will not bring dividends to the doctor. It also happens that the doctor is afraid of responsibility. As a result, we distort the life of the child, being complicit in the formation of a sickly adult who is constantly looking for all sorts of ailments.

• What are the main differences between our pediatrics from the European?
• They have doctors in the same standard situations do about the same.

In our country, doctors often use phrases such as “I think,” “I think so.” Nor do they necessarily refer to any kind of evidence base or other sources of information. In Western medicine, this is impossible. The doctor should at least explain where he took the information on the basis of which he offers the treatment. And if the doctor is engaged in innovation, something invents – this is done as part of a specific experiment, everything is very seriously regulated in terms of the safety of both the patient and the doctor. We do not have the institute of evidence-based medicine, it is present only in fragments.

• Do our children differ from European ones in terms of susceptibility to diseases?
• All are ill the same. But different attitude to diseases. In Swedish and French kindergartens, children run around with snot in short-sleeved T-shirts at a temperature of 16 degrees. And we sneezed a little – and the child is already at home.

In many schools, just crazy – cancel physical education classes, because they are afraid, as if something did not work out. We are creating a knowingly sick generation. At that time, it was in childhood that the foundations of health and an adequate attitude towards one’s personality and one’s future were laid.

• According to you, an ignorant person can understand that European medicine is tougher and more inhuman …
• Not at all. It is closer to nature, to natural processes. In the civilized world for several decades, there is a system of “public health” (public health), which studies all the factors that affect the health of the human population.

Our medicine is regulated and slowed down. It focuses on the treatment of the disease, and not on the preservation and development of health. Europe pediatrics largely exists by the standards of the day before yesterday. We are now trying to become a source of alternative, modern information for doctors. Secondly, we hope to someday come to an understanding of medical self-management – a mechanism by which active practitioners could participate in the decision-making system, including the preparation of protocols for the treatment of diseases, based on the interests of patients and those who care for them. treats Medical self-government can not be created on level ground by orders from above. This is only possible for an active civil society. And we hope that, thanks to such movements, the whole system will work differently “from below”.

“For its part, the European Pediatric Association is ready to transfer its experience, technologies, diagnostic methods and treatment protocols to its Europe colleagues, which can be adapted to Europe conditions,” says Arunas Valiulis, Lithuanian pediatrician, board member of the EAP.