Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2489
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
Brody H.
A matter of influence: Changing times call for changing policies on the prescence of drug company reps in residency programs
Health Affairs (Millwood). 2002 Mar-Apr; 21:(2):232-234
http://www.healthaffairs.org/freecontent/s28.htm
Abstract:
Although it can be argued that exposure to drug reps can give doctors in residency programs the opportunity to learn how to deal with them, residency programs – and indeed whole hospitals – should be drug-rep-free-zones. In the past decade, the pharmaceutical industry has drastically upped the ante. Evidence is steadily mounting that physicians are influenced by industry largesse. More importantly, many physicians are blind to this. Consequently regulatory oversight is necessary. The content of medical journals is also influenced by suppression of results and intimidation of researchers. These issues are interconnected in a culture of entitlement, which is encouraged by the pharmaceutical industry. Medical students and residents work hard to become physicians and are encouraged to believe that they are entitled to compensation. Medical educators must take firm action to reverse this culture of entitlement, but this is not easy. Physicians can afford to pay for unbiased continuing medical education, for drugs (instead of using samples), for lunches, for professional organizations without sponsorship and journals without advertising. A strong effort to regain our integrity as a profession is a better educational lesson than free lunches and drug rep visits.
Keywords:
*analysis
United States
pharmaceutical representatives
gifts
prescribing behavior
culture of entitlement
continuing medical education
samples
ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: GIFT GIVING
ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: PAYMENT FOR MEALS, ACCOMMODATION, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT
INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: PRESCRIBING, DRUG USE
PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: DETAILING
REGULATIONS, CODES, GUIDELINES: HOSPITALS
