(Download) "Pharma Goes to the Laundry: Public Relations and the Business of Medical Education (Essay)" by The Hastings Center Report " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Pharma Goes to the Laundry: Public Relations and the Business of Medical Education (Essay)
- Author : The Hastings Center Report
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Life Sciences,Books,Science & Nature,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 185 KB
Description
What's the difference between medical education and pharmaceutical public relations? Not much, according to the people who do it. "(T)he broad distinction between healthcare PR and medical education is becoming obsolete, writes Neil Kendle, chief executive officer of Lowe Fusion Healthcare, in a recent issue of Pharmaceutical Marketing magazine. So slender is the difference between education and PR than that Kendle cannot even say for certain which business he is in. "Sometimes I describe Lowe Fusion as a 'PR consultancy', sometimes as a 'healthcare communications agency'. Sometimes I just cop out and list the things we do." (1) Here's how the business works. The pharmaceutical industry puts up the money, usually in the form of an "unrestricted educational grant." The grant goes to a for-profit medical education and/or communications company (MECC), which, in consultation with its pharma sponsor, puts together an "educational program." (2) The company and the MECC recruit academic physicians to deliver the program in return for a small cut of the grant. If the MECC is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, it can offer the educational program on its own. If not, it must go through the CME office of a medical school, which--again for a cut of the grant--accredits the program and certifies it free of commercial bias. Then doctors, nurses and other health care workers attend the "educational program" that pharma has funded in order to satisfy the CME requirements of their professional organizations.
 "Pharma Goes to the Laundry: Public Relations and the Business of Medical Education (Essay)" by The Hastings Center Report " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}