Pediatric surgery is defined as the diagnostic, operative, and postoperative surgical care of patients from prenatal diagnosis through adolescence with congenital and acquired anomalies and diseases, be they developmental, inflammatory, neoplastic, or traumatic. The scope of this discipline is broadly the same as general surgery, focused especially in infancy and childhood but to include the fetus, adolescent, and young adult with special health care needs arising from childhood surgical conditions.
The American Board of Surgery has been granted approval by the American Board of Medical Specialties to award certification in pediatric surgery to those whose specialized training and professional activities primarily encompass the discipline as defined above. It has been agreed that this certificate will not be offered to those who, for practical purposes, limit their activities to the spheres of interest of other approved surgical specialty boards, such as neurologic, orthopaedic, plastic, thoracic and urologic surgery. It is further recognized that such other disciplines limiting their activities to anatomical regions or special systems may include surgery pertinent to those specialties in these age groups.