New med school course: How to interact with drug reps

Learn to avoid being dazzled:

“We want to appeal to physicians’ natural skepticism,” said Dr. Ethan Halm, an associate professor of medicine and health policy at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
The prestigious Manhattan school is including a new type of training at its Morchand Education Center, famous for its use of actors to play patients.
For these sessions, the actors will play pharmaceutical company sales representatives. The students will be taught “how to effectively spar with the drug reps” by asking aggressive questions, Halm said.
Another part of Mount Sinai’s program will advise health care providers how to tactfully deal with patients who see a drug on television and demand a prescription for it.

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Gasman
For these sessions, the actors will play pharmaceutical company sales representatives. The students will be taught “how to effectively spar with the drug reps” by asking aggressive questions, Halm said.
Is there any meaningful evidence to back up this physicain training strategy? Sure, it sounds good on paper, but will it work. Likely the few hours training will give a false sense of security to the newly minted grads, who will think themselves invincible to drug company tactics. Meanwhile, the drug companies will provide 100 hours of training to their reps for every hour the docs got in med school.
Best just to stay clear of the drug reps. Consorting with them cannot lead to good outcomes because their motives are always contrary to the doc’s and patient’s interest. The best you can hope for is a stalemate, and most of the time the outcome will be worse.
Anonymous
“Consorting with them cannot lead to good outcomes because their motives are always contrary to the doc’s and patient’s interest.”
Speak for yourself. Ask my patients if they are unhappy about the free samples. If you don’t have a good product, I won’t use it. If you have a good product and I use it, and you are glad I use it, please feel free to express your gratitude. That is the American way.
Anonymous
“That is the American way.”
Actually cold hard cash is the American way. I just wish they could take the average $35,000 a year spent on each doctor by drug companies to whore us and deposit the cash in our bank accounts. I’d much prefer that to stupid pens and squeezie toys. Let them pay us off like the scumbag lawyers.
Anonymous
“Ask my patients if they are unhappy about the free samples.”
What happens when those free samples run out? Pharma is counting on you writing a script for those meds thereafter which YOU may or may not do….but many docs will. Why use the newest ACE on a newly diagnosed hypertensive when HCTZ will do? Why use levoflox for a UTI is bactrim/keflex will do? ust because it is free? I am sure the ID docs will love that one. I have never understood why DTC advertising is allowed for prescription meds. The fact is medicine should be prescribed based on need and peer-reviewed evidence to support there use, not the latest pharma DTC marketing idiocy. Pharma spends more money on marketing than in research (which shoots holes in the “if our prices drop we can’t do the research argument”). Yes we live in a capitalist society, but the simple fact is 1/2 of all health care dollars comes from government entities. Gasman is right. I don’t take pharms reps food, pens, stick-ons, or other crap. It may not make me popular with my staff, but I sleep better at night.
Anonymous
I agree when generics are truly equivalent in terms of efficacy and tolerability.
Unfortunately, the standard of care in my speciality will not be met by and large with generics at this point in time, so patients are very grateful for samples. If I run out, I can have a rep in my office dropping off samples within an hour or two of my call. Samples provide the critical opportunity to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of medications prior to expending dollars on prescriptions.
Of course samples are not really “free”, the company has to pay for them from sales revenue, but they make a critical difference for some of my patients and are providing tremendous value to my indigent patients. My patients and I are grateful for the excellent service and samples.
Unfortunately you may be hurting your practice by not dispensing samples as other practioners may be perceived as providing better value. Also remember too that gasmen and gaswomen don’t have the same concerns with practice marketing as an internist or surgeon. I don’t know any anesthesiologist that dispenses samples!
Anonymous
I might add that I think that Mount Sinai would provide much better value to its trainees by educating them on practice marketing and how to negotiate insurance contracts.
Anonymous
I guess since History and Physicals don’t stand up in court, they aren’t teaching that in American Medical schools anymore.
Anonymous
These aren’t relevant today. They allow calculators while taking the SAT now too….

New med school course: How to interact with drug reps

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