Last month, the American Medical Student Association ranked med schools based on their freebie policies, using a PharmFree scorecard. Since then, several schools reacted with embarrassment over their rankings.

Now, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has drafted a get-tough policy that would prohibit docs, other employees and students from accepting almost all freebies from industry. The med school dean has also endorsed the draft principles. Robert Branch, director of Pitt’s center for clinical pharmacology, tells The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that it’s unlikely companies “would make this massive investment if it wasn’t successful.” Pitt received a ‘B’ from the AMSA.

In West Virginia, Marshall University, which received an ‘F,’ is also considering a new policy. “Some faculty and administrators within the school are looking at the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and ways to limit or decrease it,” Charles McKown, dean of Marshall’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, tells The Charleston Gazette. “The consensus seems to be that more policies and restrictions are likely forthcoming here.”

But over at West Virginia University, which also received an ‘F,’ dean John Prescott struck a defensive tone. He says the med school won’t adopt policies based on the AMSA ranking, but would continue to discuss “how to take the best care of patients…We’ll take a good look at this. But let’s do it for the right reason…I know of no correlation between the existence of these policies and the way a medical school teaches students about ethical standards,” he tells the Gazette. And he adds that the AMSA is “a good organization, but I don’t think this was their best effort to date.”