[Promoting new paradigms: Bill Fulford and values-based medicine]

In this paper we present the principles of values-based medicine (VBM) as they were developed by Bill Fulford, its creator. VBM is the theory and practice of effective health-care decision making for situations in which legitimately different, and hence potentially conflicting, value perspectives are in place. Values, as describes by Sadler, are a range of preferences, predilections, insights, opinions, and predispositions to act. Conceived in this way values are a major determinant of our actions or decisions and give a framework for our goals. VBM is complementary to Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). With the background of analytic philosophy, VBM provides clinical tools for linking the scientific knowledge of EBM to the needs and wishes of the individual patient in the clinical setting. We will describe the ten principles and provide some commentaries and reflections on them.