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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Doctors as Drug Spruikers?



A nice picture of Callander and a good Scottish joke to start this sad tale.

Dr Finlay Dr Finlay Ah've goat heartburn.
Get yer tit oot the porridge Janet.


I am surprised that this is even news.

Prominent doctors paid to speak by drug companies are "salespeople" employed to drive up prescription rates, an Australian investigative researcher claims.

A report in the latest British Medical Journal is heavily critical of the job of so-called "key opinion leaders" who are paid by pharmaceutical companies to give lectures and advice, or be involved in medical trials.


My brother and his wife are both in medical sales in the UK. I was surprised just how much information that they had on the doctors that they visited and the post visit behaviour by the doctors.

It is not surprising that if you take it one step further that there will be pay back if doctors are paid to endorse products. It is a cut throat business with many winners and losers.

A long way from the trusty GP from Tannochbrae. I note in the entry that it was actually filmed in Callander and Auchtermuchty, both places that I used to drive through regularly at different stages of my life. Callender on the way to skiing, hill walking, climbing, white water kayaking and drinking weekends on the west coast of Scotland. Auchtermuchty, on my many trips out of Cupar. Trivia Question of the Day. Where are the Proclaimers from? It begins with an A and ends with a Y.
Zemanta Pixie

2 comments:

Liz Hinds said...

Did you ever watch A Most Peculiar Practice? It starred Peter Davison as a young doctor in a university practice. His colleague was Patrick Troughton's son and he was always doing deals with drug reps - that then went wrong.

Liz Hinds said...

And what's more ... it annoys me that reps have appointments with the doctor during surgery hours. That's for sick people surely? (It might have changed now.)