Attitudes of medical school faculty toward gifts from the pharmaceutical industry

The American Medical Association (AMA) has recently published guidelines for the receipt of gifts from industry representatives. To examine faculty members' attitudes toward that AMA policy as it pertains to gifts from the pharmaceutical industry, the authors surveyed the faculty of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in 1991. Of 462 faculty members, 248 (54%) completed the questionnaires. The faculty generally agreed with the AMA guidelines. A majority of the faculty believed that personal relationships had the potential to influence prescribing patterns but that gifts, in general, did not greatly influence prescribing behaviors. Compared with the 169 M.D. faculty, the 69 Ph.D. faculty significantly favored more restrictive policies (p less than .001). The authors discuss both the ethical considerations and the utility of guidelines for physician-industry interactions.