Pediatricians care for children and families from all walks of life. Some are children known from neighborhoods. Others are children from distant lands. Pediatric focus does not stop with the physical care of children but extends to include their mental and social-emotional health and concern about their families. Pediatricians care about how children are doing at home, at school, and in their communities. In this era, children and their families are impacted by social and political changes in their homes (social media and screen time), in their communities (refugee populations and children requiring palliative supports at school), in their health care networks (EMR in every tertiary pediatric center), and in the larger world (multiple military deployments of fathers and mothers). This issue explores the impact of contemporary public health challenges for pediatric care, promising models for caring for chronically ill children, and state of the art therapies for complex childhood conditions.
