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Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools
INTRODUCTION: The education of medical students should be based on the best clinical information available, rather than on commercial interests. Previous research looking at university-wide conflict of interest (COI) policies used in Canadian medical schools has shown very poor regulation. An analys...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701639/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23861928 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068633 |
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author | Shnier, Adrienne Lexchin, Joel Mintzes, Barbara Jutel, Annemarie Holloway, Kelly |
author_facet | Shnier, Adrienne Lexchin, Joel Mintzes, Barbara Jutel, Annemarie Holloway, Kelly |
author_sort | Shnier, Adrienne |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: The education of medical students should be based on the best clinical information available, rather than on commercial interests. Previous research looking at university-wide conflict of interest (COI) policies used in Canadian medical schools has shown very poor regulation. An analysis of COI policies was undertaken to document the current policy environment in all 17 Canadian medical schools. METHODS: A web search was used to initially locate COI policies supplemented by additional information from the deans of each medical school. Strength of policies was rated on a scale of 0 to 2 in 12 categories and also on the presence of enforcement measures. For each school, we report scores for all 12 categories, enforcement measures, and summative scores. RESULTS: COI policies received summative scores that ranged from 0 to 19, with 0 the lowest possible score obtainable and 24 the maximum. The highest mean scores per category were for disclosure and ghostwriting (0.9) and for gifts and scholarships (0.8). DISCUSSION: This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of all 17 Canadian medical school-specific COI policies. Our results suggest that the COI policy environment at Canadian medical schools is generally permissive. Policy development is a dynamic process. We therefore encourage all Canadian medical schools to develop restrictive COI policies to ensure that their medical students are educated based on the best clinical evidence available, free of industry biases and COI relationships that may influence the future medical thinking and prescribing practices of medical students in Canada once they graduate. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3701639 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37016392013-07-16 Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools Shnier, Adrienne Lexchin, Joel Mintzes, Barbara Jutel, Annemarie Holloway, Kelly PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: The education of medical students should be based on the best clinical information available, rather than on commercial interests. Previous research looking at university-wide conflict of interest (COI) policies used in Canadian medical schools has shown very poor regulation. An analysis of COI policies was undertaken to document the current policy environment in all 17 Canadian medical schools. METHODS: A web search was used to initially locate COI policies supplemented by additional information from the deans of each medical school. Strength of policies was rated on a scale of 0 to 2 in 12 categories and also on the presence of enforcement measures. For each school, we report scores for all 12 categories, enforcement measures, and summative scores. RESULTS: COI policies received summative scores that ranged from 0 to 19, with 0 the lowest possible score obtainable and 24 the maximum. The highest mean scores per category were for disclosure and ghostwriting (0.9) and for gifts and scholarships (0.8). DISCUSSION: This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of all 17 Canadian medical school-specific COI policies. Our results suggest that the COI policy environment at Canadian medical schools is generally permissive. Policy development is a dynamic process. We therefore encourage all Canadian medical schools to develop restrictive COI policies to ensure that their medical students are educated based on the best clinical evidence available, free of industry biases and COI relationships that may influence the future medical thinking and prescribing practices of medical students in Canada once they graduate. Public Library of Science 2013-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3701639/ /pubmed/23861928 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068633 Text en © 2013 Shnier et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Shnier, Adrienne Lexchin, Joel Mintzes, Barbara Jutel, Annemarie Holloway, Kelly Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title | Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title_full | Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title_fullStr | Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title_full_unstemmed | Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title_short | Too Few, Too Weak: Conflict of Interest Policies at Canadian Medical Schools |
title_sort | too few, too weak: conflict of interest policies at canadian medical schools |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701639/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23861928 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068633 |
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