Nothing like a bad grade to get someone’s attention. Remember how the American Medical Student Association recently graded med schools on their interactions with drugmakers? Well, UCLA’s med school got a not-so-impressive C.

The school didn’t fail because it’s in the process of implementing a policy to restrict sales reps from trying to influence students. But the bad publicity didn’t sit well with school administrators and faculty, who are busy talking up their efforts to get tough.

Andrew Leuchter, who chairs the faculty executive committee, says guidelines were actualy passed in November and should be in place by July. “If doctors have promotional materials that are labeled with the name of a company, it can create the appearance of impropriety, that industry has influence over what we do. We want to make sure patients know we are focusing on their welfare, not on any commercial interest.”

One third-year medical student believes the policy will be beneficial. “The school is going in the right direction to prevent (medical students) from being influenced by advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry,” says Julie Lam.

Leuchter also says there are benefits to interactions with the industry, which include obtaining early access to new treatments, helping to develop these treatments and testing for safety and effectiveness. But the guidelines prevent anyone at the school from accepting gifts from industry reps and prohibit sales and marketing reps from being in any clinical areas, except to provide training on devices already purchased.

“There are many ways the acts of industry affect what we do as health care providers,” says Leuchter. “The information physicians should be getting about the effectiveness of treatment should be based on the best available evidence from unbiased scientific literature, not from the pharmaceutical industry…It’s a big change in the way we do business.”

Here’s the AMSA scorecard.

Source: The Daily Bruin[tags]American Medical Student Association, UCLA Medical School[/tags]