Child and Adolescent Health
Child and adolescent health tests growth and development surveillance, immunisation, common acute infections, asthma, obesity, adolescent mental health and safeguarding. The exam expects you to use age-specific norms and to distinguish normal variation from red flags.
Core rules
- Plot weight, length/height and head circumference on validated charts and interpret trends, not single points.
- Use developmental milestones with corrected age for prematurity; ask about hearing, vision, speech and social communication.
- Treat fever by age and clinical state: young infants need urgent assessment; do not rely on a single temperature.
- Immunise according to the national schedule, checking contraindications and catch-up needs.
- In adolescents, offer confidential time, screen mood and substance use, and know safeguarding thresholds.
Worked example
A 15-month-old boy is not walking independently. He sat at 8 months and pulls to stand. Examine tone, hips, feet, spine and growth; ask about hearing, vision and regression. Isolated delay in walking with normal examination may be a variation, but regression, asymmetry or loss of skills needs paediatric referral. Reasoning: milestone pattern and examination decide urgency.
Traps
Dismissing parental concern; using adult fever thresholds; missing dehydration; prescribing antibiotics for viral illness; and failing to ask about safety, neglect or adolescent self-harm.