Carnegie Mellon research: How doctors rationalise acceptance of industry gifts
Despite heightened awareness about the undue influence that gifts from pharmaceutical companies can have on doctors' prescribing practices, and despite expanding institutional conflict-of-interest policies and state laws targeted at preventing such practices, companies continue to reward doctors for prescribing their drugs with gifts ranging from pens and paper, to free dinners and trips. A new study by two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, helps to explain how doctors rationalise acceptance of such gifts, which author George Loewenstein, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology, describes as 'barely described bribes.' The study found that physicians rationalise acceptance of these gifts as a form of reward for the sacrifices they made obtaining their education...