Bioethics

Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics
Metropolitan Park West
1100 Olive Way, Suite 800
MS MPW 8-2
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 884-8355

Benjamin Wilfond, MD
Division Head

About the Division
Consultation
Research Programs
Training Programs
Educational Programs
Leadership and History
Related Links
Contact List

About the Division

The Bioethics program encompasses the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, which is supported by Children's Hospital and the Division of Bioethics within the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Our mission has three broad components:

Provide consultation and education for families, health-care providers, researchers and policymakers.
Conduct research on ethical issues related to pediatric health care and clinical research.
Train the next generation of clinicians and bioethicists about pediatric bioethics.

Our program is developing partnerships with the Department of Medical History and Ethics at the University of Washington's School of Medicine, as well as the schools of Law, Nursing, and Public Health and Community Medicine to accomplish our mission. The Center is involved is a variety of activities including research, training, consultation, and education.

For more information about the Division of Bioethics at the University of Washington or the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics please contact our administrative office at (206) 884-8355.

Consultation

The Bioethics Consultation Service provides consultations for families, clinicians, researchers and policy makers. Our advice is grounded in analytical reasoning and supported by knowledge of laws, regulations and empirical data. We emphasize communication, mediation and practical problem solving. The Children's Hospital Ethics Committee oversees the Bioethics Consultation Service.

Clinical Bioethics Consultations are available for ethical issues related to patient care or clinical policies at Children's Hospital. The Children's Hospital Ethics Committee provides oversight for this service. Clinical consultations can be obtained by calling the paging operator at (206) 987-2000.

Research Bioethics Consultations are available to advise families, research staff and investigators who have questions about designing or conducting clinical research. We also advise the Human Subjects Protection Program (HSPP) and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) who regulate human subjects research at Children's. Research consultations can be obtained by calling our administrative office at (206) 884-8355.

Research Programs

Bioethics scholarship draws on the work of many disciplines including anthropology, economics, history, law, literature, medicine, nursing, philosophy, psychology, sociology and theology. It uses conceptual and empirical social science approaches to evaluate the reasons and arguments used in making moral judgments.

Our goal is to address these issues with methodological rigor rather than to advocate for a particular moral or political position. Bioethics can inform regulations and policies at institutional, state and national levels but most bioethicists are not policy makers.

Our research focuses on the interface between population and individual concerns. We are interested in issues related to allocation and prioritization of health-care resources and we study these issues as they relate to policy development and the clinical impact of integrating new technologies for diagnosis and treatment. We pay particular attention to how these issues relate to parental decision making and chronic illness.

Current projects include:

Research recruitment
How much influence is appropriate for researchers to assert when enrolling families in research studies?

Disabilities
How should we promote the interests of children with profound cognitive disabilities and their families?

Genetic testing in children
As the number of potential genetic tests expands what criteria should be used to decide the tests that children receive?

Pediatric biobanks
Should a child's research data and samples be destroyed after the child turns 18 and is not reachable to give consent?

Global health
How should we promote the participation of adolescents who live in resource poor settings in health related decision-making, particularly in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Continuous ethics improvement
How do we measure — and what interventions can improve — ethics quality in an institutional setting?

Training Programs

We are committed to training clinicians for academic careers in bioethics to ensure that the next generation of scholars, teachers and consultants are able engage in pediatric bioethics issues and to encourage medical students and residents to consider careers in bioethics.

The Pediatric Bioethics Fellowship Program is for clinicians who are interested in academic careers that emphasize scholarship in bioethics. This two- or three-year fellowship can be combined with subspecialty training. Fellows will conduct an independent research project, participate in clinical consultations, and may also obtain a master's degree in Public Health.

The application deadline is November 15, 2008 for the Fellowship beginning July 2009.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children's Hospital and the Division of Bioethics, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle is accepting bioethics fellowship applications for fellowships beginning July 2008. The Bioethics Fellowship is a two-year program (with an option for an additional year) that trains individuals in bioethics with an emphasis on pediatric issues. The goal of the fellowship is to prepare individuals for academic careers with an emphasis on scholarship in pediatric bioethics.

The fellowship is open to physicians in any specialty, as well as other doctorally-prepared individuals (JD, PhD) who intend to engage in pediatric clinical care and/or research for their careers. The program includes an educational curriculum and provides training and experiences in research scholarship, teaching, and bioethics consultations. Fellows who do not have prior advanced training in empirical research methodology (i.e. MS, MPH or PhD) will be encouraged to enroll in the master's program in public health or the master's program at the Department of Medical History and Ethics, University of Washington. For more information, please see the Center's website at: http://bioethics.seattlechildrens.org/education/
clinical_bioethics_fellowship.asp.

By September 30, 2007, interested candidates should submit an application that includes curriculum vitae, a personal statement about career and research interests, a writing sample and three letters of reference (submitted directly). Please send to:

Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH
Director of Education
Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics
MPW 8-2, Suite 800
1100 Olive Way
Seattle, WA 98101

Pediatric Bioethics Seminars are held each Thursday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and are open to Children's and UW faculty, staff and students.

Upcoming Seminars

Fetal Medicine: The next big thing?
December 19, 2007 | Seminars
John Lantos, MD
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Chicago

*This seminar will take place on Wednesday at the main hospital in conference room: W3747B.

Please contact our administrative office at (206) 884-8355 or bioethics@seattlechildrens.org, to be placed on our mailing list.

Medical Student/Resident Bioethics Immersion: We are developing opportunities for medical students and residents that will last two- to four-months. This will include work on a research project and participation in clinical consults and educational activities.

Educational Programs

We are committed to engaging students and health-care professionals in reasoning and problem solving that draws heavily on the knowledge base of ethics-related disciplines. We reject both the absolutist view that there is only one 'right' answer and the relativistic view that all answers are as 'good' as any others.

Clinical Pediatric Bioethics Education and Outreach includes ongoing educational programs for medical students, residents and fellows. We also offer lectures and case-based discussion for pediatric bioethics issues to providers throughout the WWAMI region that includes Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho and Montana.

Case-Based Teaching Guides
We provide materials using cases and discussion points for education and training of health professionals and students.

To increase our impact, we are developing pediatric bioethics Web-based educational modules that will include a series of case-based teaching modules. Two modules are available online.

Clinical Bioethics Fellowship
The Clinical Bioethics Fellowship is a two-year program (with an option for an additional year) that primarily trains clinicians in bioethics with an emphasis on pediatrics issues in the clinical and research arenas.

Grand Rounds
Each year the Center for Pediatric Bioethics sponsors three to four presentations that focus on ethical issues in medicine.

Consent, Assent and Parental Permission (CAPP) Mentoring Program
The purpose of the program is to improve communication skills of researchers and research staff when engaging families about decisions for participation in clinical research.

Reading List
Use this list of recommended reading to learn more about pediatric bioethics.

The annual Pediatric Bioethics Conference is the capstone of our educational program. It provides continuing education for individuals in the Seattle community, the Pacific Northwest and throughout the nation. We create a forum for invited guest faculty and participants to have meaningful discussions about complex and controversial issues.

Predicting Our Future: Genetic Testing in Children and Their Families is the topic for the 2008 conference to be held on July 25 and 26th in Seattle.

Watch the Webcast from the 2007 or the 2006 conference on issues related to Vaccination of Children.

Read about the 2005 conference which examined issues related to the participation of children in research.

Leadership and History

The Center for Pediatric Bioethics began in February 2004 under the leadership of Doug Diekema, MD, MPH. Diekema has been a faculty member of the Department of Pediatrics since 1993. Diekema is a pediatric emergency medicine physician and also chairs Children's Institutional Review Board. He served as the center's interim director from 2004-2006. He is currently the center's educational director, and leads the Pediatric Bioethics Fellowship Program.

Diekema chairs of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics, and holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Medical History and Ethics in the School of Medicine and the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington.

Benjamin Wilfond, MD, joined the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics as the director in August 2006 and established the Division of Bioethics in August 2006. Wilfond most recently was an investigator at the National Institute of Health in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute and the Department of Clinical Bioethics, NIH Clinical Center. He held adjunct appointments in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Wilfond is a pediatric pulmonologist and currently has adjunct appointments in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine and the Department of Medical History and Ethics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

David Woodrum, MD, is the center's clinical director. Woodrum has been on the faculty of the Department of Pediatrics since 1974. A neonatologist, he chairs the Children's Hospital Ethics Committee. He leads the Clinical Bioethics Consultation Service.

In 2005, Children's Hospital's Board of Trustees endowed the center and renamed it to honor retiring CEO Treuman Katz for his interest in pediatric bioethics.

In August 2006, Benjamin S. Wilfond, MD joined the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics as director and established the Division of Bioethics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

The center has received funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA) to support the RFL Program and the educational outreach activities.

Contact List

Name	Title	Email
Wilfond, Benjamin MD	Professor and Division Head Director, Treuman Katz Center For Pediatric Bioethics	bwilfond@u.washington.edu
Diekema, Doug MD, MPH	Professor Educational Director, Treuman Katz Center For Pediatric Bioethics	diek@u.washington.edu
Opel, Douglas MD	Acting Instructor and Senior Fellow	djopel@u.washington.edu
Woodrum, David MD	Professor Clinical Director, Treuman Katz Center For Pediatric Bioethics	woodrum@u.washington.edu
Aziz, Zuraya MS	Research and Family Liaison	zuraya.aziz@seattlechildrens.org
Salas, Halle Showalter MPhil	Research and Family Liaison	halle.showalter@seattlechildrens.org
Villareale, Nanci Larter RN, MSN	Administrative Director	Nanci.villareale@seattlechildrens.org
Mastroianni, Anna JD, MPH	Visiting Scholar	anna.mastroianni@seattlechildrens.org amastroi@u.washington.edu
Carpenter, Kaiti	Research Assistant	kaiti.carpenter@seattlechildrens.org
Newcom, Carolyn	Program Assistant	carolyn.newcom@seattlechildrens.org

Questions about Bioethics? Please Contact Carolyn Newcom at bioethics@seattlechildrens.org