Topics covered in this chapter

The role of reasoning in values-based practice is illustrated by the use of case-based reasoning (casuistry) in the management of a case of teenage acne.

Other topics include:

• Evidence-based medicine and management of teenage acne

• Cosmetic and medical treatments

• Values and communication skills

• Principles reasoning

• Other methods of ethical reasoning (utilitarianism and deontology).

Take-away message for practice

You can use case-based and other ways of reasoning about values to explore your own and other's values as they as they impact on practice.

Where awareness of values as the first skills element of the process of values-based practice provides a wake-up call to values, reasoning about values as the second element is about expanding our values horizons. Reasoning skills in values-based practice are not used to derive particular moral or other evaluative conclusions (to “prove” what is right or wrong). In values-based practice, reasoning skills are used rather to explore and come to understand better our own and other's values as these bear on and influence a given situation.

Expanding our values horizons with case-based reasoning (casuistry)

The importance of expanding our values horizons in this way is illustrated in this chapter by following a consultation between a GP, Dr. Charles Mangate, and his patient Jane Brewer, a 17-year-old aspiring model with mild acne.