The American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on the Family recommends that pediatricians take a more active role in helping to insure that the family environment is conducive to a child's emotional and physical well-being.
Some psychiatrists feel that outpatient commitment has a legitimate role in treating mentally ill individuals, especially those who are not even aware of their disease.
Physicians must be able to decide when to accept a patient's decision in the event that the decision seems irrational or does not seem to be in the patient's best interest.
Readers are referred to an article by S.A. Schneck in a 1998 issue of JAMA about how physicians make the worst patients and provided with a list of questions about this theory.