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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17794

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

Carmody D, Mansfield PR
What do medical students think about pharmaceutical promotion?
Australian Medical Student Journal 2010 Apr; 1:(1):54-7
http://www.amsj.org/archives/300


Abstract:

Aim: The aim of this review was to produce an overview of
surveys of medical students’ exposure to and attitudes towards
pharmaceutical promotion. Methods: PubMed was searched
for studies featuring surveys of medical students regarding their
interactions with pharmaceutical promotion and tabulated
the findings for survey questions relating to the main themes.
Results: Students have significant exposure to promotion, and
they generally view receiving gifts as acceptable, but do regard
some gifts as more appropriate than others. Most students think
pharmaceutical sales representative (PSR) presentations are biased
but still of educational value and should not be banned. Most
students do not believe promotion will affect their prescribing
behaviours. A large majority of students want more education in
their curricula on how to interact with PSRs. Conclusions: Many
medical students think that pharmaceutical promotion is biased
and feel underprepared for interactions with the pharmaceutical
industry. Despite this, they accept exposure to pharmaceutical
promotion believing that it will not influence them. There is scope
for improved education in medical schools about this issue.

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963