Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH

Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine with adjunct appointments in the Departments of Bioethics & Humanities and Internal Medicine in the School of Medicine and the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health. He is also an attending physician in the emergency department at Seattle Children’s Hospital and serves as Director of Education for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. He has been a member of the Seattle Children’s Hospital ethics committee since 1991, served as an ethics consultant for 26 years, has been chairperson of the institutional review board since 2000, and founded the Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s in 2004. He is past-Chair of the Committee on Bioethics of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a past Board member of the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities. He currently serves as Chair of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee for Human Subjects Protections (SACHRP) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a member of the FDA’s Pediatric Advisory Committee.

Dr. Diekema received his MD from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and his MPH from the University of Washington School of Public Health. He completed his residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison and his fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He is an elected Fellow of the Hastings Center and was honored by the American Academy of Pediatrics as the 2014 recipient of the William G. Bartholome Award for Ethical Excellence.

Dr. Diekema’s teaching responsibilities include education in the emergency department, monthly pediatric ethics conferences and several education committees. He serves as co-director for the fellowship in pediatric bioethics. He has been a visiting professor throughout the WAMI region (Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho). He is nationally sought after as a lecturer. He has numerous local and national committee responsibilities, as well as an extensive bibliography. His research interests include pediatric bioethics and pediatric wilderness medicine.

Dr. Diekema’s research interests in include clinical and research ethics related to children and public health ethics. In addition to numerous scholarly publications in bioethics and pediatric emergency medicine, Dr. Doug Diekema's bibliography includes Clinical Ethics in Pediatrics: A Case-Based Textbook, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH

Academic Title: 
Professor
Department Roles: 
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Bioethics and Division of Emergency Medicine
www.seattlechildrens.org