Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15276

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Morton M.
Buying Lunch...And What Else?
Health Affairs 2009 Mar-Apr; 28:(2):540-545
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/2/540

Abstract:

IT WAS MY FIRST DAY WORKING AT THE family medicine clinic, and as a typical, dutiful medical student, I was eager to get started. My first patient was an elderly woman with chronic back pain, a problem she’d struggled with for years; she was asking for medication to tide her over until her mail-order prescription was filled. After I completed a thorough history and physical exam, one of the clinic doctors and I conferred, and then we went in together to see her. While the two of them talked, the doctor sent me to get some samples of a drug for her, directing me to a closet in the back of the office.

Opening the door, I was stunned to find myself surrounded on four sides with brightly colored, attractively packaged free drug samples in all shapes and sizes reaching from floor to ceiling. In addition to the samples, there were various bins full of other “freebies”-pens, clipboards, penlights, and other useful gadgets. There also were a number of coupons providing discounts on prescription drugs. After a good bit of searching, I found the requested drug sample, returned to the examining room, and gave it to the patient. She smiled gratefully. “This helps me so much,” she said…

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