Consider these statistics:
There are more nurse practitioners (147,000) than there are family physicians (100,000) in the US.
These advance practice nurse professionals can write prescriptions, and it’s estimated that the average nurse practitioner writes more than 6,000 a year.
And about 70-80% of those nurses who regularly attended lunch or dinner “continuing education” events sponsored by drug companies said they were more likely to prescribe the drugs that were highlighted in the lunch.
All of these statistics were presented at last week’s Georgetown conference, “Prescription for Conflict: Should Industry Fund Continuing Medical Education?”
The presenter was nurse-researcher Elissa Ladd, PhD, RN, Asst. Clinical Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, who says the possible pharma influence on nurse-prescribers has largely flown “under the radar.”
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Monday at #ADA2021, an infectious disease epidemiologist, a journalist, and a researcher shared perspectives on communication of risk in the era of COVID-19: http://ow.ly/ROfR30rMeE7 @AstleyCM @garyschwitzer @berthahidalgo @ADA_DiabetesPro
Shoutouts to @susan_bewley @drkevinknopf @MichaelBaum11 in this call for more than fawning coverage from press releases for these kinds of stories.
Also, linked history inside goes back 5 years just on Grail apparently trying to become Holy Grail. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1408849696416841731
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Shawn Kennedy
July 1, 2010 at 11:23 amGreat post and this is an important topic that needs to be kept on NPs’ radar. But it’s not just an issue for NPs – all nurses need to be aware of the potential for inluence. I’ve continued the discussion on AJN’s blog, http://bit.ly/de6BFO.
Bill
July 1, 2010 at 12:17 pmInfluencing people (doctors, nurses, NPs, PAs, etc) is what sales reps are hired to do. Additionally, this is as American as apple pie. It is, simply stated, the American way.
In many areas, medical practices ‘compete’ for pts, thus they often sell themselves and their services…
Those (providers or reps) who would lie or rep lesser products, don’t last.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like