Abstract
The pediatrician needs to ask and answer for himself: "What are the major psychosocial developmental milestones which an average child of my patient's age and cultural background has to achieve; what are the characteristic behaviors involved in such achievement; to what extent may his current illness interfere with these behaviors?" Other questions are in the mind of his patient (and the parents), whether or not they are expressed: 1) What do I have? 2) How did I get it? 3) Why did I get it? 4) What can be done about it? 5) When will I get well? With young children up to the age of four or five who require hospitalization there is the additional query: Why did my parents bring me to this place and why are they leaving me here?
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