Employees of the University Medical Center and Medical School are no longer permitted to receive gifts from companies that do business with the University Health System, according to a new University policy.
Steve Wasserman, Medical School assistant dean for research, said the policy is designed to eliminate financial conflicts of interest for employees and to “create an environment in which patients, funding agencies and the general public are convinced that there are no external influences on what you are doing in the various missions you are fulfilling for the University.”
Wasserman said pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers, among others, in the past would offer gifts such as pens, notepads and tote bags to employees. Wasserman added that companies also often provided lunch for employees as a “way to buy access to faculty and residents ... to talk about their companies’ drugs.” This too, will be prohibited under the new policy.
Urology Prof. Raymond Costabile said there has been concern over the past few years that advertising directly to service providers will influence the delivery of medical care and the products being prescribed.
“I like to know that my doctor’s giving me what I should get based on her expertise rather than being influenced by the pen she used that morning,” Costabile said.
Costabile added that the best support for this concern comes from the actions of the companies themselves, which continue to spend money on Health System employees.
Costabile said the policy includes a stipulation that will allow companies to continue donations of items that are considered educational — such as books for medical residents, Wasserman noted — as well as free samples of drugs for patients.
“If it is of nominal value and there is a definite advantage a patient can get from it ... then that’s still allowed,” Costabile said. “We have to work with vendors and want to work with them, but we have to do it in a way that’s best for patients and students and research efforts.”
Wasserman added that gift-giving is universal in the business world, but there are more risk factors in the medical industry.
“The stakes are much higher when you’re dealing with clinical care, clinical research and biomedical research, which is supposed to result in new therapies coming out,” Wasserman said. “We want to make sure these are not tarnished.”
The University is one of a number of institutions that have prohibited this type of activity, Wasserman said, following health systems at institutions such as Yale, Stanford and Pittsburgh.
Costabile said he expects other medical institutions across the country to implement similar policies.
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