Rapid Responses to:
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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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Finally Authenticity
- Ned Hoke (11 May 2002)
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Time management: Drug representatives visits
- Carlos Trescoli, Luis Barcia (14 May 2002)
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A matter of debate
- Mainak Mukherjee (14 May 2002)
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Time-Concepts.com Clarification
- Carl E Wooten (14 May 2002)
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Ned Hoke, Ecological Medicine, private USA
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Capitalist commerce creates extraordinary simplicity for human interaction. Profit is a central cornerstone of human purpose. Dispensing with fuzzy fictions about the realities of pharmaceutical implantation through the minds and hands of physicians presents finally a more honest face toward the world. This further clarifies who physicians work |
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Carlos Trescoli, Consultant Physician Hospital de la Ribera, Alzira 46600. Spain, Luis Barcia
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Nowadays, doctors need to divide their time in clinical practice, continuos education, research and teaching. And also, clinical management. Drug companies have started filling the doctors busy scheduled day. How much time does a doctor spend with drug representatives contact? If each visit takes 10 minutes and only one per day that is more than one hour weekly (some doctors can have more than 3 visits daily). And normally the visits happen in the middle of the day. Recent non-published data our Institution showed that more than 80% of the visits do not have educational value for the visited doctor. May be there are too many visits and little scientific content. Time management is very important to doctors to be able to finish successfully a busy day. Drug representative visits take time and sometime no much benefit is obtained. Arranged visits with drug representatives will help doctors to decide the most convenient time to be told about subjects of their own interest as well as select the information more valuable for them. Cash payments made for doctors time might be used by doctors to finance their own medical education and not what is in offer by the Pharmaceutical companies. Institution policies to help their doctors to manage efficiently their time should be encouraged. If these policies also help to fund doctors medical education even better. Pharmaceutical companies may not disagree. |
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Mainak Mukherjee, Private Psychiatrist India-713101
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The issue of accepting fees for listening to a drug company campaign is highly debatable. Since by repeatedly listening to product and brand details, the prescriber ultimately helps augment the sale of a particular product and thus the associated profit, companies may choose to pay the doctor both as a compensation for his professional time and as a token of gratitude. If the payment is NOT in cash, it can even be considered as a professional income for sure. On the other hand, it can increase the company's expectation from the doctor, since they are paying now. This can lead to some confusion and misunderstandig, because listening only, paid or non-paid, will not ensure prescription. I would love to know about other readers' views on the topic. Thanks! |
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Carl E Wooten, President Time-Concepts.com
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Hello: The article entitled, "Doctors accept $50 a time to listen to drug representatives", by David Spurgeon had several incorrect assertions. The author, Mr. Spurgeon, did not contact Time-Concepts.com to evaluate the program, or clarify his facts. So, I will take a moment to complete his effort. The Time-Concepts.com program is designed to either meet or exceed all existing and new guidelines established by the AMA and PhRMA. Under the consultancy guidelines, physicians are clearly in safe harbor to receive cash payments when performing a service for pharma. That is exactly how the Time-Concepts.com program is structure. Our consulting physicians, which have more than doubled since the AMA article was published last week, are obligated to service for one year. They perform impact analysis on the marketing information and presentation skills of a representative in order to improve the pharma resources provided for their patients. This analysis will ensure the pharma companies have it right when marketing their products. More importantly, the fee structure is fair and reasonable and allows smaller pharma companies, with less expensive comparable products to compete with big pharma. Time- Concepts.com has built the program for all the right reasons. The physicians understand it, why don't you? |
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