Epidemiological trends and treatment costs for paediatric hospital admissions at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Jamaica, are presented. Recommendations to improve efficiency of service provision are suggested.

The delivery of optimal paediatric critical care requires healthcare providers to think outside the confines of the intensive care unit. Public health strategies, training and recertification in basic and advanced paediatric life support and optimized transport of patients are key issues for consideration.

Student self-assessment is a useful method of promoting learning through recognition of strengths and weaknesses, understanding the relevance of core learning objective and encouraging responsible learning behaviour. The study examines the accuracy of medical students self-assessment of their performance in a paediatric clerkship objective structured clinical examination. Students overestimated their performance at some stations and underestimated at others.