Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19832

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: Magazine

AMSA move on code
Australian Medicine 2004 May 174

Full text:

The first-ever code of conduct for medical students and the pharmaceutical industry in Australia is to be developed by the Australian Medical Students’ Association.
President of AMSA Matthew Hutchinson says the Association will use the code to assist students and their governing societies in making better informed decisions on their relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
Following a comprehensive literature review and information-gathering from leading experts, AMSA has begun a nationwide education campaign.
Giving medical students access to information and evidence from both sides of the fence, the campaign is aimed at making students more aware about the pros and cons of relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
The Association will then run a nationwide survey of its 9,000 members and, using the information as well as assistance and advice from the AMA and other stakeholders, will formulate policy and the code of conduct.
Mr Hutchinson says: ‘In this way, medical students can be better informed about where the pens, pads and the sandwiches from industry-sponsored lunches are taking them.’

The student view
Phillipa Sharwood, University of NSW
‘Relationships between students and pharmaceutical companies should be minimized because evidence shows that exposure to pharmaceutical companies can influence prescribing habits.
‘Students should be encouraged to independently educate themselves about best-practice prescribing, so that they are not reliant on the naturally biased material provided by companies when they later come to make treatment decisions on a patient’s behalf.’

Simon Zilco, University of Western Australia
‘For me the arguments against any relationship just don’t stand up. Most critically, medical students are non-prescribers. Even as junior doctors, all of my older colleagues say that their decisions for drug regimes invariably start and end with the advice of their registrars and consultants, not the pamphlet handed out at the free lunch.
‘Pharmaceutical companies represent a massive financial resource for medical student societies and they should be treated like any other sponsor. In the end, this argument of poor patient outcomes is a furphy, for the simple reality that medical students won’t remember who funded their educational forum, nor will they care. Instead, they’ve more interested in the fact that the forum happened in the first place.’