Experts predict bright future for pediatric urology

San Francisco-Pediatric urology has had a rich history of groundbreaking medical advances made by surgeons whose compassion for children and creativity was often matched by a willingness to defy accepted wisdom and institutional politics.

But it did take a long time for the specialty to be recognized. The first formal fellowships in pediatric urology weren't established until 1980 at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where Dr. Snyder was an attending with John Duckett, MD. Not until 2008, nearly 30 years later, was the field finally certified as a subspecialty. In 2010, this fast-moving field passed another milestone: the first-ever World Congress of Pediatric Urology, with 10 societies from across the globe participating. There, David Bloom, MD, professor of urology at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, put their work into historical perspective in a state-of-the-art lecture on the first 50 years of the subspecialty.

Inadequate medical care for women and children prompted passage of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1921. Promoted by progressives, suffragists, and pediatricians, the law was attacked as socialist by the American Medical Association and challenged in the Supreme Court.