Medical schools and teaching hospitals should ban gifts tophysicians and other faculty, staff, students and trainees, whether on-site oroff-site, including food and travel, said the Association of American MedicalColleges (AAMC).
According to a report of the AAMC Task Force on IndustryFunding of Medical Education, sales reps should see docs only by invitation orappointment, and medical schools should develop a means for reps to detail “byinvitation in faculty supervised structured group settings that provide theopportunity for interaction and critical evaluation.” Student interaction withreps “should occur only for educational purposes under faculty supervision.”
On CME, medical colleges “should develop audit mechanisms toassure compliance” with ACCME standards and “should establish a central CMEoffice through which all requests for industry support and receipt of funds forCME activity are coordinated and overseen.” Faculty should be “stronglydiscouraged” from participating in pharma-funded speakers’ bureaus. Students,faculty and trainees should be banned from participating in non-ACCMEaccredited industry events or accepting payment for attendance atindustry-sponsored meetings.
And schools should ban ghostwriting “on presentations of anykind, oral or written …. by any party, industry or otherwise,” said AAMC.
The report, by an AAMC task force chaired by former Merckhead Roy Vagelos and studded with industry bigwigs, included a few keydissents. Amgen’s Kevin Sharer supported the “explicit recommendations of thetask force but said he’s “not in a position to endorse the text” and added that“it is understandable that industry and academe will not agree completely onthe final wording of any report given our differing roles in healthcare.”Pfizer’s Jeff Kindler and Lilly’s Sidney Taurel supported all of the recommendationsof the report except for that of a ban on industry-sponsored speaker programs,and added: “We do so without endorsing all of the supporting arguments used inthe body of the report,” and suggested that “the reasoning for many of therecommendations is directionally correct, but more often than not the potentialissues addressed reflect perceptions rather than proven consequences.”
In its introduction to the Macy Foundation-funded report, thetask force wrote: “Over recent decades, medical schools and teaching hospitalshave become increasingly dependent on industry support of their coreeducational missions. This reliance raises concerns because such support, includinggifts, can influence the objectivity and integrity of academic teaching,learning and practice. The validity of these concerns is supported by a robustbody of psychosocial evidence and an emerging body of neurobiological evidenceregarding the effects of establishing interpersonal relationships and gifts onrecipients’ choices and decisions.”
