Now, more than ever, America is a citizen in a global village. This places the medical professional in a position of no longer needing to be aware of just local diseases, but also becoming competent in dealing with imported illnesses. With increasing globalization of trade and easier means of crossing borders via air travel, local epidemics in a small part of the world can swiftly become global catastrophes. In the past century, the great winged vector of human disease has metamorphosed from the mosquito to an airliner, allowing greatly compressed speed of disease transmission throughout long distances.

As families elect to take exotic vacations or perhaps visit relatives in developing countries, the challenge arises to keep children safe from infections rarely encountered in the United States. Additionally, with increasing globalization comes a larger immigrant and refugee population, necessitating the acquisition of new skills in delivering culturally competent care.

This issue of Pediatric Annals provides six excellent reviews of topics more timely today than ever before. Consideration of the contents of this issue will better prepare the pediatric provider to serve as a resource to families considering travel abroad, as well as to improve diagnostic acumen when delivering care to families returning from travel.

Tremendous developments in the field of radiology have made available images of human anatomy never thought possible. Yet with each advance in imaging technology, practitioners must develop more expertise in selecting the precise study to best visualize the pathology in question. Indeed, in the field of pediatrics, this could not be more important as recent studies have shown that commonly used imaging modalities, such as computed tomography (CT), contribute significantly to the lifetime risk of developing cancer.

Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) affords fantastic detail and multi-planar imaging, the long scan times and need for a still patient often require sedation in younger children. Ultrasound is ideal for the typical lean body habitus of many patients. Despite these two modalities lacking the need for ionizing radiation, there are times when CT, or combined positron emission tomography (PET)/CT, is the optimal choice for imaging. Indeed, once thought to soon surrender to MRI, CT with multi-detector scanning technology now provides images that rival MRI in detail, and at a speed that makes sedation almost unnecessary in most patients.

This edition of Pediatric Annals provides seven excellent reviews of the latest imaging technologies used in children. Safety regarding the use of ionizing radiation is emphasized throughout, as well as optimal clinical applications of each modality. After reviewing this issue the participant will not only be better able to select the most appropriate study for each individual patient, but also will be a better advocate for the safe and effective application of each technique in a given age group.

From the time Abraham Jacobi set up milk stations and dispensaries for the delivery of care to children, the practice of pediatrics has had disease prevention and health promotion as some of its core values. Dramatic changes over the past several decades have made it difficult to apply the classic disease model to prevention and health promotion, with evidence for the benefit of some long-standing care guidelines lacking while their wisdom remains without question. This poses a daunting challenge to the primary care provider, who is increasingly asked to follow only those guidelines for care delivery that are supported by the strongest evidence.

The development of the Bright Futures Guidelines has been nearly two decades in the making, with efforts focused on optimizing health maintenance while acknowledging the ever changing developmental needs of children. Recognizing the need for stronger evidence behind some of the proposed guidelines, the authors have appropriately dubbed many as evidence-informed. Indeed, the latest edition of the Bright Futures Guidelines is specifically geared toward successful deployment in the busy primary care office, with emphasis placed less on disease detection and more appropriately on the evolving needs of the family.

This issue of Pediatric Annals provides several excellent reviews that will allow the participant to better understand the most recent guidelines for health supervision and prevention, and more importantly, successfully integrate the guidelines into their daily care of children.