Pediatric rheumatology in Chile: past, present and future

Abstract

Pediatric rheumatology is a subspecialty that strongly emerged in the forties in England and later in the United States, where it achieved recognition as a specialty in 1992. In Chile, emerges from adult rheumatology, promoting its development since the seventies with the progressive establishment of different units throughout the country, reaching its recognition by CONACEM in 2015 and the implementation of two training centers with university programs. There are 31 pediatric rheumatologists registered in Chile. Only 7 out of16 regions and 14 public centers count with a pediatric rheumatologist. The Metropolitan Region has the 61,3% of them. There are two pathologies incorporated into the GES regimen. It is estimated that 25 full-time doctors are required for exclusively clinical work to meet the demand of the child population up to the age of 18. Among the problems detected is the lack of exclusive dedication to rheumatology, the difficulty to form an interdiscipli­nary work team and the access to tests and drugs. It is essential to establish pediatric rheumatology as a subspecialty in deficiency to stimulate the training of specialists and improve equitable access of the population to a pediatric rheumatologist.