Is a community paediatrician a bit like a GP for children or similar to a development paediatrician?

[lingle]

I've seen threads urging assessment by a developmental paediatrician. We are "under" (another word to be expunged from the terminology asap) a community paediatrician. I wondered what her range of experience would be.
For instance, a child with a heart problem - would s/he be under a cardiologist rather than a paediatrician?

ds2's community consultant paed, overseas gis overall care. She does regular developmental check, refers on if she feels extra specialist advice is needed etc. But tbh ours is fantastic & we couldn't be without her.

Paediatrician is just a child specialist. A child with a heart condition would see a paediatric cardiologist yes, as that is more specific. A comunity paediatrician is usually based at the nearest childrens hospital but does clinics in smaller health centres aswell, they tend to look at the whole child not just little bits of them.
I hope that makes sense.

Community Paeds are just jack-of-all-trades with regard to children's development and illnesses etc. A bit like a GP spcialising in children. As jjones says, for paediatric care in a specialist area e.g. psychiatry, you would need a further referral to a paediatric specialising in that specialism.

Unfortunately all the Community Paeds we have dealt with have been rubbish as they had very little expertise in ASD.

I know many of the posters on here have bad experiences of community paeds. Just to add, ours has been brilliant, and diagnosed my Ds's ASD - she works closely with the Children's Assessment Centre and the Language and Communication Disorders clinic, so it is a field of expertise for her. It depends on the area you are in I guess.

Very interesting. So my community paediatrician is like a children's GP. ie she knows nothing about dementia or menopause (except what she learnt training) and she would be scanning for things like diabetes and other physical conditions that affect behaviour.

Hmm, am beginning to see why she has to be with the specialist SALT for the appointments.

Do you think then that she is a "gatekeeper" to the developmental paediatrician?

thats how it worker here we had seecommunity one first he was crapthe next appoinment i demandedasked for devlopement paed be there

'Gatekeeper' is exactly how I would describe a Comm Paed. I don't know what your particular developmental concerns are but for instance, Aspergers is a developmental delay disorder. For that my son sees a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiarist from the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Servie (CAMHS) as that body takes the lead on ASD in our area.

Very helpful thank you. it's receptive language delay (diagnosed) plus concerns over social communication (ongoing review)