Drug reps and samples are welcome here

Commentary. By Eric Anderson, MD, AMNews contributor. Jan. 15, 2001.

COMMENTARY

Observations on the state of medical practice and medical life

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A colleague kept his favorite samples in a box under his desk. He wanted to try a new medication on a little old lady and thought, if her means were limited, she'd surely appreciate starting with samples. He bent down, groped around in his box, straightened up with the medication and offered the samples to her with a "I want you to take this. ..." She swept the medicine from his hands with her gloves and snapped: "Young man, I'm not about to take somebody's leavings out of your trash bin!"

So samples don't always work.

But they do for me and I'm pretty sure for my patients, too. We use them, although on a busy day it's a lot easier for the doctor to write a prescription and just move on than go hunting for samples and explain how the new medicine has to be taken.

True, new medicines are likely to be more expensive and I can see how it might be cost effective for the accountants of a group or insurance company to move physicians away from using samples, but I would be greatly bothered by being denied access to the pharmaceutical representatives of my choice, the new medications I want to hear about and the samples I'd like to try on my patients.

Yet that is happening. We read in our medical journals, as in American Medical News (AMNews, Oct. 16, 2000), that clinics are "increasingly restricting access to sales representatives to gain better control over costs and prescription patterns." I see that as one more order for us to "stand to attention" as the nonphysicians move us around like pawns on the chessboard. [...]