5 ms·
When I was in medical school, a question posed to us in lecture was, "Would a pharmaceutical company giving out free pizza at lunch influence you?" I think few
by carbocation 7y ago
When I was in medical school, a question posed to us in lecture was, "Would a pharmaceutical company giving out free pizza at lunch influence you?"
I think fewer than 5 of us agreed that it would.
Of course it would! I was really struck by this. It's hard to have a conversation about proper vs improper influence when we can't even agree about what would influence us.
- mirimir 7y agoIt's not just free pizza that med students and interns get! They get lots of equipment, supplies, and so on. And it's a great investment. Because prescribing habits tend to persist after training, for many years. Sort of like Kuhn argued for science.
- carbocation 7y agoOf course! My point just being that even if it were simply free pizza, that’s still an influence, even if small. Talking about what to allow or disallow would be So much easier if we could all agree that the phenomenon exists at all (which of course I am convinced it does).
- mirimir 7y agoRight. I know that it does. Or at least, I recall seeing studies about that. But it's been too many years, and I didn't retain any records of that life.