Do conflict of interest policies hurt GME and medicine?

By: Julie McCoy July 23rd, 2009

Chances are, your program’s budget has felt the effects of the economic downturn. But according to many of the coordinators I’ve spoken to, there’s another factor causing funding woes: Policies that limit or disallow GME programs from accepting money from Pharma and other industry sources.

Although conflict of interest is a real concern, some experts say that there are too many restrictions on industry-physician relationships. A new group of physicians called Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE) are speaking out today in a conference about their belief that restrictive conflict-of-interest policies need to be scaled back, according to a Boston Globe Article.

ACRE says Industry and physicians should develop a “productive collaboration”. Completely limiting the relationship can impede the development of better medicine and treatments, says ACRE in the Boston Globe article.

Although much of the controversy has focused on efforts to curtail these potentially conflicting relationships, ACRE wants to show lawmakers, physicians, patients, and others that there is another side to this issue.

The article does not specifically address residency programs/GME funding. However, I wrote an article for RPA awhile back profiling three institution’s conflict of interest policies, which are now required by the ACGME. One expert I spoke with was very aware that restrictions on GME-industry may hurt trainee education. They’ve set up a committee to review questionable contributions from industry sources. For example, if the charitable/foundation arm of a drug manufacturer wants to provide textbooks to a program without any quid pro quo, the committee would review the arrangement and determine whether that is acceptable. This might be a good middle ground-physicians are protected from industry influence, but programs can still reap the benefits of some freebies, when appropriate.

How have restrictions on funding from industry affected your residency program? What does your institution’s conflict of interest policy? What are some actions you’ve taken to save money? Leave a comment in the box below.