Douglas Diekema (director of education, Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, Seattle Children's Hospital) came to Health Journalism 2009's panel on "Bioethics for journalists: Communicating the tough cases" to deliver a presentation titled "Ashley revisited: Reflections on a difficult case." Diekema discussed the case of Ashley, a profoundly developmentally disabled 6-and-a-half-year-old girl whose parents sought procedures to limit her growth. After describing the specifics of the procedure, Diekema went through the ethical issues raised by the case and then presented specific recommendations for journalists dealing with difficult bioethcial cases like Ashley's.
