Patterns of practice and paediatric care

The question we raise in this paper is whether the notion of patterns of practice is useful in clinical ethics. The first part of the paper presents the notion of patterns of practice, describing what it reflects (including important themes from the philosophy of practice) and how it might be used. Central to the idea is the concept of coherence, which is made up of internal and external aspects. In clinical practice, where any decision or action can be regarded as ethical in nature (which is often not recognised), patterns of practice must be both internally and externally coherent. Internal coherence is akin to casuistry, while external coherence reflects virtue ethics. A more tentative suggestion is that these notions link to the medieval concepts of conscientia and synderesis The second part of the paper, using fictional case vignettes, shows how these ideas are relevant to paediatric practice. The relevance is both explanatory and determinative; that is, patterns of practice help to explain quotidian ethical decision-making and determine what those decisions ought to be.