RI needs more pediatric neurologists: Expert

RI needs more pediatric neurologists: Expert

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia needs to train more pediatric
neurologists up to the standard of foreign physicians who are
expected to stream in during the coming free trade era, an expert
said yesterday.

After a ceremony appointing him as a professor at the
University of Indonesia's school of medicine, Taslim S.
Soetomenggolo said Indonesia's education institutions had not set
up the necessary structures to speed up the training of pediatric
neurologists.

"If we let this continue, we'll end up as spectators (watching
the flow of foreign experts into Indonesia)," said Taslim, who
was a member of the team that separated the highly-publicized
Riau Siamese twin in 1987.

Taslim is the University of Indonesia's 222nd professor and
the eleventh inaugurated at the university this year.

He is head of the university's school of medicine child
neurology subdivision

Taslim said Indonesia had produced only 13 child neurologists,
three of whom had died.

Most experts were not originally trained as child neurologists
but were senior pediatricians who later met the Indonesian
Pediatrician Association's standards for child neurologists, he
said.

They are called consultant pediatricians.

Taslim, 57, said he was ready to set up a special program for
child neurology.

"The program will be geared to train pediatricians as well as
neurologists. There should no longer be a question over whether
neurologists or pediatricians will become better pediatric
neurologists," he said.

The dean of the medical school, Ali Sulaiman, said "there
should be cooperation among specialists. If you approach a health
problem with a too narrow a perspective based on each expert's
specialization, the cost of healthcare will be too great a burden
(for patients)," he said.

Taslim said there were differences in the way children's
brains and adults' brains had to be treated.

"Children's brains are not a miniature of an adult's brain.
Children's brains grow and get bigger over time and is in the
process of development from being an immature brain to mature
brain," he said.

Neurological problems with adults usually cause a loss of
skills already mastered.

Children's neurological problems may mean a child never
learns basic skills like speaking.

Taslim said if a baby did not cry after birth, walk in 15
months or speak in two-and-a-half years, there was a big
possibility the baby had a neurological problem.

The most common post-natal neurological problem is convulsion
with a fever.

Taslim said between 2 percent and 5 percent of children under
five years old were vulnerable to this.

Epilepsy is a common neurological disease affecting people of
all ages. But Taslim said infants had to be treated differently
from adults.

"Certain medicines used for adults can have negative side-
effects when given to infants," he said.

The drug phenobarbital, which is harmless to adults, could
cause hyperactivity and poor concentration in children, he
said. (35)