…is a plan to end industry influence over medical refresher courses. Presently, drug and device makers provide about half of the funding for such courses so that doctors can often take them for free. Even as they have acknowledged the need for other limits, many medical societies and schools have defended subsidies for education as necessary.
“As science progresses, it’s going to get harder and harder to get doctors to keep pace,” said Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the American College of Cardiology. “I think industry has some responsibility toward education.”
By contrast, the American Psychiatric Association recently announced that it would phase out industry funding for medical refresher courses at its conventions.
The institute acknowledged that many doctors depend on industry funding for refresher medical courses but said that “the current system of funding is unacceptable and should not continue.” The report recommended that a different funding system be created within two years.
That would be the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, which has added its voice to the condemnation of widespread conflict of interest in America’s medical schools and in the practice of medicine generally. Its just-issued report on industry corruption of research and care is, says the New York Times, “scolding… damning… a stinging indictment.”
But as to the creation of that new funding system for continuing education courses about which Jack Lewin’s so worried… Let’s see… How do people usually fund their education?
Well, if they’re poor, you know, they get scholarships and take out loans and pay some out of pocket… They take part-time jobs while they’re in school…
Which is all well and good. But how in the world are they supposed to pay when their average salary is $300,000? This is what’s worrying Jack Lewin… It’s getting harder and harder for doctors to keep pace with new information, and how in hell are they going to afford these courses????
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Update: I’ve made this point many times on University Diaries. If you kids keep misbehaving…
Much of the IOM report echoes recommendations from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which also supports Grassley’s proposed database. But not all schools have followed that group’s advice. “We give a pretty clear warning,” says panel chair Bernard Lo, a bioethicist at the University of California, San Francisco. “If the [institutions] don’t get their act together, they’re really inviting the legislators to step in.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:33PM
All very well for the Institute of Medicine to issue a "scolding… damning… stinging indictment." Maybe they could set an example by cleaning house. Some of the most compromised academics exposed by Senator Grassley are members of the IOM — like Emory’s Charles Nemeroff and Stanford’s Alan Schatzberg. Does the IOM have an exit strategy for such embarrassing members?
April 28th, 2009 at 2:42PM
Excellent question. I’ll shoot them an email and ask…
April 28th, 2009 at 3:20PM
While you are at it, you might ask them what they intend to do about Lester Crawford. He was the FDA Commissioner who resigned under a cloud in 2005 and later pleaded guilty to criminal conflict of interest. He confessed to false reporting of information about stocks he owned in companies he was in charge of regulating. He received a sentence of three years of supervised probation and a fine of about $90,000.
The last time I looked, Lester Crawford was still listed as a member of the august body known as the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:34PM
See Dr Bernard Carroll’s take on this in this post on Health Care Renewal:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/04/institute-of-medicine-report-on.html