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Coconuts and conduct disorder

Child psychiatry in Kerala?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Latha Hackett
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Manchester, Jesson House, Manchester Road, Swinton, Manchester M27 1FG
Richard Hackett
Affiliation:
Withington Hospital, Manchester
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A large crowd throngs the out-patient hall and all 300 children cry in unison. The father of an eight year-old girl pushes her through the crowd until she reaches a partitioned cubicle where four doctors sit round a table. He puts her in front of the first doctor and tells him about the chest pain she has had for months. The doctor, struggling to hear above the din, takes a brief history and examines the girl standing up. The history is inconclusive and there are no signs; he cannot understand why her parents have bothered to make the 30 mile bus ride that morning; why didn't they accept the advice of the paediatricians they had consulted nearer their home? Usually he would have written a prescription for a tonic costing the father two days' wages, but this time he directs the girl and her father back through the crowd to where I sit, alone in my cubicle, separated from the gaze of the attenders by a saloon bar door.

Type
Foreign report
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

References

Rutter, M. Tizard, J. & Whitmore, K. (1970) Education, Health and Behaviour. London: Longman.Google Scholar
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