College of Medicine may shun pharmaceutical industry funding
Central Michigan University may not accept pharmaceutical industry funding for its upcoming medical education programs.
Though no official decision has been made, Ernest Yoder, dean of the College of Medicine, said it is highly unlikely CMU will accept such funding to avoid conflicts of interest with those companies.
When a school receives funding through companies in the medical industry, students are often provided company pens, pads of paper and other gifts, Yoder said.
“Research verifies that we are affected by those contacts and by the friendliness and the provision of resources,” he said.
Traditionally, funding for medical education programs has been obtained through tuition and research dollars, through clinical work done by physician teachers and through funding from pharmaceutical medicine and device companies, Yoder said.
He said the portion of funding received through industry donations does not account for a significant amount of total medical education funding, however.
U-M’s decision
The University of Michigan recently stated in a press release that pharmaceutical industry funding will no longer be accepted for their medical programs.
The university said the decision was made to dispel the risk or appearance of conflict of interest and the change will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2011.
“The methods, vehicles, venues and funding models may change, but as an academic medical center, it is our responsibility to hold ourselves accountable and fulfill our educational mission to our physician colleagues’ continuing professional development,” the press release stated.
Yoder said it is likely CMU will follow U-M’s decision.
“I do believe that the principle that U of M is housing is correct,” Yoder said. “On the other hand, I do know that when we graduate our students, and they go into residency and they go into practice, that they’re going to come in contact with representatives from pharmaceutical and device companies, so we need to teach them about that.”
Right from wrong
Through vignettes and examples, medical students at CMU will be taught the ethics of working with industry representatives, Yoder said.
“If a representative from a pharmaceutical company, for example, comes to a physician’s office and provides lunch and leaves them with pens and equipment to help them run their practice and with information about the medications that their pharmaceutical company produces, it is likely that those medications would be prescribed preferentially to those medications from another company,” Yoder said.
He also said an educational institution needs to teach physicians that medical decisions should be based purely on the needs of the patient, not on industry influence.
