Straight from Dr. Carlat’s psych...

Straight from Dr. Carlat’s psychiatry blog. A plea for doctors to resist the trend in drug company marketing. This reminds me of another campaign that offered doctors “amnesty” offering to take all the drug company pens they own. That website is called “No Free Lunch”. Why write about this at all? Because as prescription rights for psychologists (RxP) keeps making inroads, the issues of maintaining ethical integrity in the face of Big Pharma become increasingly important. From Carlat’s blog:

The National Physicians’s Alliance (NPA) just announced the kick off of its “Unbranded Doctor” campaign. For those who have never heard of the organization, the NPA is to the AMA (the American Medical Association) as the Prius is to the Ford Explorer–namely, a progressive group of relatively young doctors who are more concerned with ethics and patient care than with ensuring a fat income stream. I am a proud card-carrying member, and I urge you to join as well.

The Unbranded Doctor campaign is a godsend for physicians who are eager to make their offices drug rep-free and sample-free, but would like some logistical help and moral support. After all, nobody wants to be impolite to drug reps, who are by nature friendly and convivial. And how do you break it to patients that there will be no more drug company pamphlets around, not to mention not-truly-free samples?

Really, how could you not click on a link that says the “unbranded doctor”? Go wild. Click.

And click on Digg button, if enjoyed, please.

Kalea Chapman, Psy.D.