Med schools coaching students on how to handle drug reps effectively Posted by Liz at 11/03/06 11:10 AM

The Washington Post reports that medical schools like Mount Sinai are putting together trainings for their students and are hiring actors to play sales reps, who will perform role plays with students. A professor at Mt Sinai says that students will be taught "how to effectively spar with the drug reps" by asking aggressive questions.

The Post says, "The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year on marketing to doctors, sometimes throwing lavish events to seal the deal on certain medicines. Critics say slick promotion is unduly influencing how drugs get prescribed, sometimes to the detriment of patients."

It's smart that schools like Mt Sinai are starting up projects such as this. It's definately needed, with the average doctor interacting with 28 drug company sales reps a week!...yep, that's 28 a week...

And some schools, like Sanford and the University of Pennsylvania are banning all doctors from accepting gifts from drug reps. More schools should follow suit.

What's the industry's response on their frequent visits to doctors?

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said sales reps help busy doctors understand the proper use, benefits and side effects of drugs.

"They are providing information that is both informative and important for physicians to know about new medicines," said Diane Bieri, the group's deputy general counsel.

I'll leave you off on one more shocking figure, about 90% of the $21 billion of the marketing budget of the pharmaceutical industry is marketing directed at doctors.

comments (4)

1 Posted by Bernette at 11/03/06 06:09 PM

I am glad medical schools are addressing the aggressive marketing doctors must face when they start their practices. Hopefully, more colleges will follow suit.

Information and medication samples are old accepted methods, but parties and substantial gifts are traps that are both unethical and potentially dangerous to these doctors' patients.

Thank you for bringing this information to this forum.

2 Posted by Sandy at 11/04/06 11:45 PM

Along with teaching students how to fend off aggressive sales tactics, they should also be apprised of just who these reps are and their backgrounds. The NY Times has reported that pharmaceutical companies recruit cheerleaders as drug reps. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the majority of these reps have no background in the sciences. It really gives you pause to think that your doctor is taking advice on drugs that affect consumers lives from former cheerleaders whose only background in science is their company's biased training seminars.

3 Posted by Charles at 11/09/06 11:36 AM

My wife is a drug rep, who graduated number one in her class with a multi disciplinary science degree. Most of her collegues have science backgrounds (no cheerleaders), and all of them have had EXTENSIVE training in the drugs they sell. None of them is allowed to give any sort of gifts to doctors. These "lavish" programs set up for doctors are not mandatory, and are based on studies, not sales myths, which is why doctors attend them as part of their continuing education.

She encounters doctors daily who practice out-dated medicine techniques and/or doctors that refuse to help patients with prevention drugs to to ensure the surgery phase arrives. It's not one sided Doctors v. drug companies and it's definitely not all unnecessary education these doctors are, or are not, listening to.

If you like having modern medicine you should thank drug companies who fund ALL university research. They also give away a substantial amount of free drugs to those who cannot afford insurance but make too much money to get medicare/medicaid. It's not perfect but if the drug companies were not profit driven we would have 1970's medication because there would be no incentive or financial way for very smart people to spend decades creating new drugs.

I'm not a conservative person but some of this should be known and posted on websites geared specically toward the downfall of drug companies in order to be better informed to fix the problems we as a nation are faced.

4 Posted by Leo at 01/20/07 04:29 PM

We understand that health insurance can be very confusing; the terms can be difficult to understand and the forms intimidating. WBR LeoP