A physician e-mails me his thoughts on drug rep detailing:

I have been thinking about the drug rep thing. I see them. I eat their lunch and I shake them down for enormous quantities of samples. I try to play their arguments off against each other and I treat them decently.

I also send every patient for whom I write a new prescription home with a trial (one to four weeks worth of everything I can). Nobody hates anything more than buying a months worth of a statin (whether it is $10 or $100) and being told to ditch it a week later. I also give them as many samples at each return visit as I can.

I figure that I decrease the cost of prescription drugs by from 10 to 30% for my patients. I also get a starting point to evaluate drugs that I might not have otherwise . . . I read their journal handouts and then try to look for the holes. I insist that my medical students accompany me to the dinners so that on the way back we can try to dissect the speaker’s points and prejudices.

Avoiding the drug companies and their advertisements is not the answer.