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Conflict of Interest
The American Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a comprehensive report in April 2009 titled "Conflicts of interest in Medical Research, Education and Practice.
The IOM defined a conflict of interest as “a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest.”
The primary interests of concern include “promoting and protecting the integrity of research, the welfare of patients, and the quality of medical education.”
Secondary interests “may include not only financial gain but also the desire for professional advancement, recognition for personal achievement, and favors to friends and family or to students and colleagues.”
Of course, public attention has focused primarily on financial conflicts of interest, and the IOM did so as well, viewing them as “not . . . necessarily more corrupting" than other secondary interests but “relatively more objective, fungible and quantifiable” and “more effectively and fairly regulated.”
Since physicians do not practice medicine in a vacuum, conflict of interest is routinely seen as an issue for physicians and institutions.
Let us now look at the impact on practice of marketing, the ways in which we are influenced by promotion.
