RC Docs Stand Up to Big Pharma

While we wait for the power elites to realize that the answer to our health care crisis lies in Kucinich's single-payer not-for-profit universal health care system and not the visionless, spineless Zaniya proposals, let's hear it for some Rapid City doctors making their own stand against the profiteers standing in the way of responsible and affordable medical practice. The Creekside Family Practice clinic has adopted a policy banning drug company sales reps from the premises.

“I think we’re doing the right thing,” Dr. [Craig] Hansen said.

Dr. [Nancy] Babbitt said it’s unethical for health-care providers to be influenced by a salesperson or by a company’s brochures or other information. Instead, independent, unbiased information sources should guide what drugs are prescribed to patients, she said.

At Creekside, as many as 20,000 prescriptions are written annually, Babbitt said. Drug companies make concerted efforts to persuade doctors to prescribe their products to their patients.

“It’s unethical for a provider to change our prescription habits based on the desire to sell the product,” she said. “We should be prescribing medicine based on neutral literature.”

Hansen agreed.

“Our job is patient advocacy,” he said. “Their job is selling drugs.”

[Tom Lawrence, "Drug Firm Reps No Longer Welcome at One Rapid City Clinic," Rapid City Weekly News, 2008.01.09]

The Creekside clinic docs are right: the free market has its place, but not in the doctor's office. Medicine should be a no-marketing, no-ads, no-profit zone.