This week during the American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual meeting, Doug Weaver, the President of the ACC and director of the Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute in Detroit, MI published an editorial in the Detroit Free Press titled: Medical Industry Should Help Fund Physician Education.
Here is the editorial in its entirety:
The pharmaceutical and medical device industry traditionally has supported physician education by funding some of the costs of scientific meetings and training materials. Removing that support would reduce the amount of needed quality education, restrict medical research and impair scientific publications.
Unfortunately, aggressive marketing and a few egregious physician-industry partnerships have eroded public trust in the relationship between industry and doctors. Some critics have suggested industry should have no role in supporting continuing medical education. Congressional watchdog groups and physician societies themselves have voiced some legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest.
But, like physicians, the pharmaceutical and device industries have a duty to improve patients' well-being and quality of life. Banning industry funding for physician education removes a large part of that obligation. Industry needs physicians – we help develop new products, conduct clinical trials and prescribe products – and physicians need education.
Public funding for medical education and research is growing scarcer. Other business sectors may pass continuing education costs on to consumers (for example, airlines include the cost of ongoing training for pilots in your ticket), but that's neither desirable nor feasible for doctors.
With few other options, a lot of needed continuing medical education will disappear.
Many quality initiatives, such as registries that track patient outcomes for medical procedures and treatments, also depend on industry seed money. These projects help reduce variability in care, prevent medical errors and eliminate inappropriate treatments. We need more, not less, industry funding in this area.
Of course, medical education must be strictly unbiased. Credible education providers have established firewalls between the staff who interact with industry and the staff who develop educational content, and they prominently cite the source of funding and any faculty relationships with industry.
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the main accreditation body for such courses, maintains stringent standards and does not allow industry to place any restrictions on content or faculty. (In the past, industry marketing departments wielded significant influence on some educational programs.)
Further, while the nation begins to tackle health care reform, it will be critical to address conflicts of interest. U.S. Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., have introduced the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which would require companies to disclose any gifts or payments to physicians. Such bills build on the self-monitoring that is already becoming more common among physician and industry groups.
Clearly, our leaders have put health care reform and transparency at the top of the national agenda for the year ahead. U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., both advocate sweeping health care reform, and the Obama administration has made reform a priority. We applaud these efforts and look forward to helping guide reform in every way we can.
In the meantime, industry has a price to pay for being on the health care team – and must continue to fund research and medical education. Professional organizations and individual physicians must create a culture of openness to rebuild trust in our health care system. We must work with industry to define a universal code of ethics. We must establish and maintain new standards for transparency.
William J. Mayo once said, "The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered." I encourage my peers, my colleagues in industry and our legislators to adhere to those words as we set a course for the future of health care. With sound policies and a commitment to transparency, everybody wins in this relationship.