Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2653

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: news

Moghimi Y.
AMSA's PharmFree Campaign
AMSA ( American Medical Student Association ) 2005 Oct 14
http://web.archive.org/web/20060415120428/http://www.amsa.org/prof/pharmfree.cfm

Keywords:
PharmaFree AMSA

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
The AMSA is putting the post-graduate American medical organisations to shame by actively pursuing the only ethical course open to them- a course which the post-graduate organisations choose to ignore. The words of the AMSA below will seem like a foreign language to them.

Yavar Moghimi’s Comments:
AMSA’s PharmFree Campaign started in 2002 in collaboration with No Free Lunch.
This year, we are launching the Counterdetailing Initiative to take PharmFree to the next level.

AMSA believes it is essential to foster honesty, integrity, humility and accountability in undergraduate medical education and beyond. Without these qualities, both the credibility of the medical community and public trust erode. The next logical question is: How can we encourage students to develop these attributes throughout their medical training?

Our answer is simple: Go PharmFree.

PharmFree because the practice of pharmaceutical gifting to students and physicians increases the costs of health care for patients and does not primarily serve patient interests. PharmFree because medical students want to be honest with future patients about why a particular medication was prescribed without compromising personal and professional integrity. PharmFree because medical students want to treat future patients using modalities supported by the best existing clinical evidence, not carefully packaged advertising.

Patients rightly expect and deserve this from the medical community.

Full text:

AMSA’s PharmFree Campaign

AMSA’s PharmFree Campaign started in 2002 in collaboration with No Free Lunch.
This year, we are launching the Counterdetailing Initiative to take PharmFree to the next level.

AMSA believes it is essential to foster honesty, integrity, humility and accountability in undergraduate medical education and beyond. Without these qualities, both the credibility of the medical community and public trust erode. The next logical question is: How can we encourage students to develop these attributes throughout their medical training?

Our answer is simple: Go PharmFree.

PharmFree because the practice of pharmaceutical gifting to students and physicians increases the costs of health care for patients and does not primarily serve patient interests. PharmFree because medical students want to be honest with future patients about why a particular medication was prescribed without compromising personal and professional integrity. PharmFree because medical students want to treat future patients using modalities supported by the best existing clinical evidence, not carefully packaged advertising.

Patients rightly expect and deserve this from the medical community.

Vision: AMSA will lead the way to revitalize professionalism in medical education and the medical profession. All medical students will learn about the ethics of drug company interaction with health professionals and make the rational, informed decision to eschew “free” gifts from the pharmaceutical industry throughout the training career. Every practicing physician will practice evidence-based medicine using modalities supported by the best existing clinical evidence, not carefully packaged advertising, and continue to uphold personal and professional integrity.

Mission: The mission of AMSA’s Counterdetailing Initiative is to educate medical students about evidence-based medicine, specifically evidence-based prescription practices; to empower students through activism to teach themselves, fellow students, and physicians about existing clinical guidelines; to introduce sources of unbiased and expert-reviewed information on pharmaceuticals to resident physicians, attending physicians, and practicing physicians in the community; and to educate medical students and physicians about the effect of pharmaceutical promotions on prescription habits.