… emails from a number of University of Wisconsin medical school professors in response to a new policy banning them from giving promotional talks for drug companies. While not as riveting as the Mel Gibson tapes, these emails definitely have their moments.
“This is insulting,” one doctor said in an e-mail. “This is beyond ludicrous. … I have kids … and, simply put, I will no longer be able to afford to work for” UW.
The doctor, who supplemented what he described as his “sub-standard” UW pay with drug company income, said the policy was being forced on him and other physicians by “self-appointed witch-hunters” without a faculty vote.
“Do we really want to function like Cuba or Venezuela?” the doctor wrote.
UD likes this one because of the pathos of this man having kids and a substandard income as a doctor at the University of Wisconsin. How will his kids survive if he only makes… I dunno… $200,000?
The political commentary is thought-provoking too. Take a doctor’s moonlighting income away, it’s
HELLO FIDELITO!
Here’s another one.
“This is complete insanity,” wrote [one] doctor, who also works as an associate professor with the medical school. “Do we still live in a democracy?”
This is possibly a psychiatrist. This doctor shares the concern of the other one about the direction our country’s headed.
There’s an elegiac feel to the next comment.
This prohibition will effectively kill the evening dinner talk…
That’s the promo talk where pharma buys you a major dinner and talks up close and personal with you about the glories of its new, undertested, overpriced drug.
More worries about feeding children no doubt underlie the next email, in which an orthopedic surgeon complains about the policy putting a cap on what they can make in their promo talks (an exception to the no-talks thing was made for this specialty):
That exemption – which was added to the proposed policy after pressure from orthopedic surgeons – allowed those surgeons to make up to $500 an hour making presentations and teaching for device makers.
In one e-mail, a doctor objected to the $500 an hour rate, saying it was too low and “clearly ridiculous.” The doctor said it should be at least $1,000 to $2,000 an hour.
Seems a bit ungrateful to UD. They got a special exception and everything. But now that she rolls it around in her head a bit… yeah… okay… five hundred dollars an hour is clearly ridiculous. Payment should start at $2,000 an hour. No! Payment should start at $100,000 an hour.
UD is unclear why the university was so eager to keep these emails private that the local newspaper had to sue for their release.
The records recently were turned over to the Journal Sentinel in a settlement of a lawsuit the newspaper filed against the university … in December, after [it] refused to release the documents…
The [associated university] foundation [which was also sued] agreed to pay the newspaper’s attorneys’ fees of about $12,400.
Why hold them back and then undergo the embarrassment and expense of a lawsuit that any idiot could have told them they’d lose? This isn’t Cuba or Venezuela yet, buddy! We have public record laws here!
And isn’t it good for students and patients at the university to know how dedicated its medical staff is?
July 15th, 2010 at 3:52PM
Highly risible. It looks like some UW doctors have been sucking at the golden teat of the drug companies and now they get wormwood.
What about patients? Medicine is supposed to be about patient care. Unless I blinked and missed it, there’s no discussion of this, and no interest in discussing this among the UW docs. Conflict of interest works like a shill that tells you that everything glittery is gold. You’d think that patients would be better off if conflict of interest were eliminated completely and permanently.
July 15th, 2010 at 6:57PM
200K$?
Really amusing. At our place, the docs have their income conveniently hidden. Income from University of Minnesota Physicians (UMP) is not considered public information. Only the salary paid with state funds is disclosed. Thus, according to public information, our old friend, Dr. Polly, is only paid $50 K per year by the university.
Gotta love it.
July 15th, 2010 at 7:05PM
ps.
U of M 2008 DAVID W. POLLY TWIN CITIES MEDICAL SCHOOL PROFESSOR $54,114
The 2009 numbers aren’t available. Looks like the poor man got a raise.
Source: http://extra.twincities.com/car/salaries/
July 16th, 2010 at 1:48PM
Interesting how profs in other fields, like, oh, ecology and English lit and history, manage to get along on their “paltry” professor’s salary…