Medical schools, take the lead

doi:10.1136/bmj.39283.399907.1F

BMJ 2007;335:172 (28 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39283.399907.1F

Letters

Journals and drug advertising

Medical schools, take the lead

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It is not only journal editors who need to take leadership inchanging the culture of acceptance of drug advertising¹ ²: medicalschools also need to recognise their responsibility.

Medical schools are to be commended for integrating many ofthe principles of evidence based medicine into their curriculums.However, when it comes to teaching about the ethics of marketingthere is much to be done: to our knowledge, no British medicalschool has a policy on pharmaceutical interaction.

Our American counterparts are setting the standard: Yale, Stanford,and many other American medical schools have policies restrictingpharmaceutical interaction during medical school.³ Their policiesreflect the value of marketing representatives as a source ofevidence.

The BMA's recent annual representatives' meeting signalled thebeginnings of a cultural shift in the United Kingdom. The meetingvoted almost unanimously in favour of supporting medical schoolsin not only forming policies but dedicating time . . . [Full text of this article]

David Biles, year 4 medical student, Patrick Howlett, year 4 medical student, Robert Hughes, year 4 medical student

University of Bristol Medical School, Bristol BS2 8DZ

db2065@bris.ac.uk