By some measures, the United States provides great health care. But for many children, especially ethnic minorities, good health care is the exception. The spring issue of Stanford Medicine explores successes and failures in pediatric care. At the root of the special report's findings is the fact that in the United States - and throughout the world - adults' health problems get more attention than kids'.
Among the offerings:
- An analysis of the hidden competition for U.S. health-care resources. It's adults vs. kids - and the adults have the upper hand.
- A feature on the place of children's hospitals in society. These bastions of pediatric health care stand on shaky ground.
- A report from the unhealthiest place on the planet for children: sub-Saharan Africa.
- A bioethicist's answer to the question: How old do you have to be to make your own health-care decisions?
- An article on what happens when medical miracles grow up, focusing on a cancer survivor and a young woman with cystic fibrosis.
- An account of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath from eyewitnesses at Children's Hospital New Orleans.
- A feature on associate professor of pediatrics Ching Wang's quest to cure the most deadly genetic disease of newborn children - spinal muscular atrophy.
The issue also includes a profile of medical school alumnus Njoroge Mungai, a Kenyan political leader (now retired) who held several top posts in the nation's first post-colonial government.
