Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20047

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

Metzl JM, Howell JD
Making History: Lessons from the Great Moments Series of Pharmaceutical Advertisements
Academic Medicine 2004 Nov; 79:(11):1027-1032
http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/fulltext/2004/11000/making_history__lessons_from_the_great_moments.3.aspx

Abstract:

The authors shed light on present-day pharmaceutical
advertisements by looking back to an important early
chapter in pharmaceutical company–sponsored promotion:
the Great Moments in Medicine and Great Moments in
Pharmacy, a series of commercial paintings produced by
Parke, Davis & Company between 1948 and 1964. Beginning
in the early 1950s, Parke-Davis delivered reproductions
of the Great Moments images to physicians and
pharmacies throughout the United States and Canada
and funded monthly pullout facsimiles in key national
magazines. The images also appeared in calendars, popular
magazines, and “educational” brochures. By the mid-
1960s, articles in both the popular and the medical press
lauded the Great Moments for “changing the face of the
American doctor’s office” while describing the painter,
Robert Thom, as the “Norman Rockwell” of medicine.
The authors’ brief analysis uses source material including
popular articles about the Great Moments, existing
scholarship, previously unexamined artist’s notes, and,
ultimately, the images themselves to explain why these
seemingly kitschy paintings attained such widespread acclaim.
They show how the Great Moments tapped into a
1950s medical climate when doctors were thought of as
powerfully independent practitioners, pharmaceutical
companies begged the doctor’s good graces, and HMOs
and health plans were nowhere to be seen. The authors
conclude by suggesting that the images offer important
lessons for thinking about the many pharmaceutical advertisements
that confront present-day doctors, patients,
and other consumers.
Acad Med. 2004;79:1027–1032.