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Community-acquired pneumonia remains the leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age throughout the world. Community acquired pneumonia can include bacterial, viral and fungal causes but it is very difficult to clinically differentiate between them. Whilst viral pathogens have been identified as the most common aetiology, bacterial infections are considered the more likely to cause severe disease. It is important that the clinician has the ability to safely differentiate between those that may require further treatment or admission to hospital and those that can be managed at home. With a wide range of presenting symptoms and potential complications, pneumonia poses a challenge for paediatricians. This article aims to guide physicians in the management, diagnosis and follow up of children with suspected pneumonia, as well as discuss future developments in this field.

A 14-year-old girl with poorly controlled asthma attended the difficult-to-treat asthma clinic for review. Although she has eosinophilia and significantly raised immunoglobulin E levels, she is not currently a candidate for omalizumab (Xolair). She also suffers from chronic urticaria, eosinophilic eosophagitis and severe conjunctivitis. You wonder if omalizumab would be effective in treating her multiple atopic conditions, in particular her troublesome conjunctivitis. PubMed was searched using the following search terms: (Omalizumab) or (Xolair) and (conjunctivitis). Searches were conducted in November 2020. Abstracts were selected for full text review if the study population identified asthma as a comorbidity. Non-paediatric studies and those that were not written in English were excluded. The use of omalizumab has the potential to be effective in the treatment of conjunctivitis associated with asthma and other atopic conditions. However, research is needed to address the question, in the form of multicenter, double-blind randomized control trials.

Introduction Chronic disease in childhood is becoming more prevalent worldwide. Self-management skills can only be taught with effective communication between the health care worker and the patient or primary care provider. ‘Teach-back’ is one proposed method for providing this education which has yielded success in adult populations but is not yet fully employed in the paediatric setting. Aims To determine whether the ‘teach-back’ technique is effective and feasible at all levels of care (primary, secondary and tertiary) to improve the self-management skills and knowledge required for a young person, or their parent/guardian, to control their chronic illness. Methods We have developed a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analyses in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocol (PRISMA-P) statement and have registered it with Prospero [CRD42021229025].

BackgroundIt is recognised that newly qualified doctors feel unprepared in many areas of their daily practice and that there is a gap between what students learn during medical school and their clinical responsibilities early in their postgraduate career. This study aimed to assess if undergraduate students and junior paediatric doctors met a Minimum Accepted Competency (MAC) of knowledge.MethodsThe knowledge of undergraduates and junior paediatric doctors was quantitatively assessed by their performance on a 30-item examination. The items within this examination were designed by non-academic consultants to test ‘must-know’ knowledge for starting work in paediatrics. The performance of the students was compared with their official university examination results and with the performance of the junior doctors.ResultsThere were a total of 478 participants. Mean examination score was 45.9% for students and 64.2% for doctors (significantly higher [p

BackgroundThis study aimed to evaluate how undergraduate students and junior paediatric doctors performed against an examination of knowledge set by non-academic consultants at a “must –know “ level for starting in paediatrics. We named this the Minimum Accepeted Competency (MAC) examination.MethodsExamination (comprised of 30 MCQ questions) was delivered to undergraduates also to new junior paediatric doctors. Results of this examination ascertained if participants had reached a clinician determined MAC, were compared with official university examination results and compared students to junior doctor performance.ResultsTotal of 478 participants. Mean MAC score was 45.9% for students and 64.2% for doctors (significantly higher [p

An 8-year-old boy was admitted with a 5-day history of cough, shortness of breath and fever. A round opacification on his chest X-ray was reported as a round pneumonia by a consultant radiologist. He was treated with oxygen and intravenous antibiotics. He is clinically improved and medically fit for discharge. You have been asked to arrange a follow-up chest X-ray and wonder as to the value of this additional exposure to radiation. Is follow-up X-ray required in a child with clinical and radiological findings in keeping with round pneumonia? We performed an online search using PubMed and Medline (1946–present) in July 2017. The key terms used were ‘round pneumonia’ or ‘round opacification’. We limited the search to include articles written in English and those relating to children. Our searches of these databases yielded 67 and 39 results, respectively. On review of titles and abstracts, we identified five relevant articles. …