Beginning Oct. 1, physicians at Stanford University Medical Center will be prohibited from accepting gifts, even pens and mugs, from pharmaceutical sales representatives. The ban is part of a small but growing trend among academic medical centers to limit pharmaceutical industry influence on patient care and physician training.
The new policy prohibits physicians from accepting industry gifts of any size, including meals or drug samples, anywhere on the medical center campus or at off-site clinical facilities where they may practice. They are also prohibited from publishing medical journal articles that have been ghostwritten by industry contractors. The gift ban extends to sales reps from medical device makers and other companies.
“In recent years we have witnessed an erosion of the public trust in the profession of medicine and even in the value of science,” said Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the school of medicine. “Part of that is related to the market forces that have increasingly converted medicine from a profession to a business, but a significant factor has also been the perception that physicians and scientists may be accepting gifts and gratuities from industry at the very time that the cost of drugs is skyrocketing.” Read the press release.
