![]() Other times, it's simply denial, with parents assuming it's a phase all kids go through. "And so there are people who have some skepticism about whether or not mental health is scientific or based on the political or social whims of the time."įor some parents, it's cultural they find psychologists and psychiatrists "too liberal in their social views," Dr. "We don't have straightforward blood tests or other physical tests in mental health," Dr. ![]() Some parents insist on "dealing with it at home." They don't place their trust in the mental-health profession, a relatively new medical discipline without the clarity of diagnoses that other doctors enjoy. Wallace says.Īre there situations in which a parent tries to deny a capable child mental-health treatment? "Bottom line is that everyone involved has to act in the best interest of the child," Dr. Both parents have to sign off on consent when there is joint custody. The Canadian Medical Protective Association recommends that doctors determine the custodial status of divorced parents before treating their kids – they need to make reasonable inquiry into who has guardianship of the child, never assuming that the parent who brings in the child has sole custody, especially in high-conflict cases. Who decides consent when parents are divorced?Ĭases arise where one divorced parent is incensed to learn that the other has taken their child to a psychologist, without his or her knowledge. Physicians who rarely treat teenagers may take the approach that parents need to be involved, Dr. "The challenge arises when people don't know or are not trained in the assessment of capacity or in cognitive development," Dr. While the set-up gives patients maximum autonomy, it can also prove challenging for doctors who don't specialize in mental health to properly assess capacity in young, diverse patients. To be capable of giving consent, young patients must understand their condition, the information given to them, the prognosis and the risks and benefits of accepting or refusing treatment. "It's all contextual with patients' conditions, what is being proposed and the maturity of the patient." You cannot have hard and fast rules," says Gordon Wallace, managing director of safe medical care at the Canadian Medical Protective Association, which provides education, legal assistance and malpractice insurance to physicians. ![]() "Some kids are much less mature by the age of 18, 19, 20, and some kids are a lot more mature when they're 14 and 13,"says Rose Geist, chief of mental-health systems at Toronto's Trillium Health Centre, who has written a guide for doctors on assessing young patients' capacity to consent to treatment. Lawmakers found that, especially among adolescents, age can be an arbitrary and sometimes inaccurate measure of maturity.
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