Abstract
Professional societies use metrics to evaluate medical schools' policies regarding interactions of students and faculty with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. We compared these metrics and determined which US medical schools' industry interaction policies were associated with student behaviors. Using survey responses from a national sample of 1,610 US medical students, we compared their reported industry interactions with their schools' American Medical Student Association (AMSA) PharmFree Scorecard and average Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) Conflicts of Interest Policy Database score. We used hierarchical logistic regression models to determine the association between policies and students' gift acceptance, interactions with marketing representatives, and perceived adequacy of faculty-industry separation. We adjusted for year in training, medical school size, and level of US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. We used LASSO regression models to identify specific policies associated with the outcomes. We found that IMAP and AMSA scores had similar median values (1.75 [interquartile range 1.50-2.00] versus 1.77 [1.50-2.18], adjusted to compare scores on the same scale). Scores on AMSA and IMAP shared policy dimensions were not closely correlated (gift policies, r = 0.28, 95% CI 0.11-0.44; marketing representative access policies, r = 0.51, 95% CI 0.36-0.63). Students from schools with the most stringent industry interaction policies were less likely to report receiving gifts (AMSA score, odds ratio [OR]: 0.37, 95% CI 0.19-0.72; IMAP score, OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.19-1.04) and less likely to interact with marketing representatives (AMSA score, OR 0.33, 95% CI 0.15-0.69; IMAP score, OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.14-0.95) than students from schools with the lowest ranked policy scores. The association became nonsignificant when fully adjusted for NIH funding level, whereas adjusting for year of education, size of school, and publicly versus privately funded school did not alter the association. Policies limiting gifts, meals, and speaking bureaus were associated with students reporting having not received gifts and having not interacted with marketing representatives. Policy dimensions reflecting the regulation of industry involvement in educational activities (e.g., continuing medical education, travel compensation, and scholarships) were associated with perceived separation between faculty and industry. The study is limited by potential for recall bias and the cross-sectional nature of the survey, as school curricula and industry interaction policies may have changed since the time of the survey administration and study analysis. As medical schools review policies regulating medical students' industry interactions, limitations on receipt of gifts and meals and participation of faculty in speaking bureaus should be emphasized, and policy makers should pay greater attention to less research-intensive institutions. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.
Highlights
Interactions between health care professionals and the prescription drug and medical device industries are common, especially in academic medical centers [1]
A nationwide random sample of US medical students was identified from the American Medical Association Masterfile (n = 3,495; 14 first-year students each from 120 US allopathic medical schools [one school had missing data for first-year students] and 15 fourth-year students each from 121 US allopathic medical schools; 231 medical students were excluded from the analysis because of inaccurate mailing addresses)
Correlation of Responses to Outcomes of Interest Students who reported interacting with a marketing representative were more than twice as likely to have reported receiving a gift than students who did not interact with a marketing representative
Summary
Interactions between health care professionals and the prescription drug and medical device industries are common, especially in academic medical centers [1]. Manufacturers may help to inform trainees and physicians about developments in health care, but they create the potential for harm to patients and health care systems These interactions may, for example, reduce trainees’ and trained physicians’ skepticism about potentially misleading promotional claims and may encourage physicians to prescribe new medications, which are often more expensive than similar unbranded (generic) drugs and more likely to be recalled for safety reasons than older drugs. To address these and other concerns about the potential careerlong effects of interactions between medical trainees and industry, many teaching hospitals and medical schools have introduced policies to limit such interactions. The development of these policies has been supported by expert professional groups and medical societies, some of which have created scales to evaluate the strength of the implemented industry interaction policies
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