The UCLA medical school is in the process of implementing a policy that will restrict interaction between the school and pharmaceutical companies because of the medical communities’ increased concern with conflict-of-interest issues arising from this relationship.
Andrew Leuchter, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, said the school has been working on a new policy for the last 18 months to regulate industry activity in the medical school.
“We passed new guidelines last November,” he said. “We are targeting full implementation (of the guidelines) by July 1.”
Lisa Ikemoto, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law, said though there is no law preventing pharmaceutical companies from giving gifts to medical students and others in the industry, the issue has been gaining momentum in the past few years.
“A lot of attention has been given to different types of conflicts of interest,” she said. “It is a part of a larger discussion taking place ““ how we train researchers and doctors to be ethical professionals.”
Leuchter emphasized the importance of this policy in ensuring that doctors focus on patients’ needs.
“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,” he said. “We want to make sure patients know we are focusing on their welfare, not on any commercial interest.”
Julie Lam, a third-year medical student, said she believes the policy will be beneficial to medical students.
“The school is going in the right direction to prevent (medical students) from being influenced by advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry,” she said.
Leuchter said the medical school wants to eliminate the appearance of these companies’ inappropriate influence over the medical community.
The guidelines UCLA has drafted prevent anyone at the school of medicine from accepting gifts from industry representatives and prohibit sales and marketing representatives 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,” Leuchter said.
Leuchter said that when the medical school began drafting the new policy, he wanted to examine this issue to ensure that faculty, staff and trainees have information that is scientifically reliable.
“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,” he said.
But Leuchter also said there are benefits to the medical school’s interaction with the pharmaceutical industry, which include obtaining early access to new treatments, helping to develop these treatments and testing if they are safe and effective. He and other members of the Faculty Executive Committee have begun to educate different departments about the changes, so they will be successfully implemented.
The American Medical Student Association, a group representing medical students nationwide, recently released a report addressing how medical students are affected by their relationship with pharmaceutical companies.
The group gave each medical school a letter grade based on whether they had policies in place preventing pharmaceutical companies from marketing drugs to students. In the report, the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine received a C grade, signifying that it is in the process of drafting a policy.
But Leuchter said he was surprised by the results, since the medical school has already constructed a policy.
Leuchter said he is optimistic about UCLA’s new policy.
“It’s a big change in the way we do business, but we have received a positive response so far,” Leuchter said.
“I think it’s a good way to go.”