Joaquín Callabed, president of the Spanish Social Paediatrics Club and elected academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), has donated to the Library of the Academy his book “Cómo puedo ayudar a un adolescente” (How I can help a teenager) (Laertes). Directed to both parents and trainers, the work is a complete guide on the development of the young person, his family and social relationship and his health in its different stages. Also, the work addresses specific issues and problems such as depression in adolescents, anorexia, sexually transmitted diseases, early and unwanted pregnancy, drug addiction, nightlife, demotivation, studies, initiation to work, couple relationships…
Dr. Joaquim Callabed
“Adolescence is, perhaps, the most important stage of an individual’s life and probably the one that presents the most seismic and questioning among the general public -Callabed said in the presentation of the book-. Specific assistance to the adolescent is not currently completed in our Public Health and that causes confusion in the parents and sometimes disinhibition due to lack of resources. ‘Cómo puedo ayudar a un adolescente’ is a help manual where we will find an answer to all the questions we ask ourselves when we deal with teenagers, we are parents, educators, doctors, pedagogues, psychologists or nursing staff”.
Callabed insists that adolescent care should be treated as a paediatric specialty, given its specificities, away from health care for adults, and its necessary multidisciplinary nature. The paediatrician specialized in adolescents, on the other hand, must have a special predisposition to treat as much as the children as with the parents, attending to the legal requirements and, at the same time, to the respect and the dignity of the patient. A work that for the author is as complex as exciting.
