From our president: Wanna buy a doctor? (Consumer Reports article)
Spotted this article in this month's magazine.
Consumer Reports magazine: June 2012
A physician with Kaiser Permanente told us recently how that nonprofit health-care provider deals with gifts from makers of drugs and medical devices: “None of our surgeons can receive anything of any significant benefit from any company, so nothing more than $25 a year per vendor. You can’t accept meals or trips or honorariums or consulting fees. If you go to dinner with a rep to learn about new products, you just have to pay for it.”
Score one for the patient. Physicians who are not influenced by industry reps are more likely to prescribe the best treatment rather than the drug on the mug they were given last week. The Institute of Medicine believes that gifts and payments create conflicts of interest that “may jeopardize the integrity of scientific investigations, the objectivity of medical education, the quality of patient care, and the public’s trust in medicine.”
Other hospital systems are joining Kaiser Permanente in restricting gifts, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and several dozen academic medical centers. But influence peddling by the makers of medical products—and the willingness of physicians to participate—is still far too prevalent.
More at: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/06/from-our-president-wanna-buy-a-doctor/index.htm
