For the past several years, there has been a growing concern by citizens, politicians and healthcare leaders about the conflicts of interest between physicians and the drug and device industry. These conflicts of interests have led to an erosion of trust that is the foundation of the doctor-patient relationship. Medical schools and academic medical centers have played a powerful leadership role in setting new standards for the profession, supported by strong guidelines set by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in the summer of 2008 and the Institute of Medicine in spring of 2009.
The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) released the first Scorecard in 2007. This initial Scorecard graded medical schools on the presence or absence of a policy regulating the interactions between their students and faculty and the pharmaceutical and device industries. In 2008, AMSA worked with The Pew Prescription Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts, to develop an updated Scorecard, which used a more rigorous and transparent methodology to assess the content of policies at medical schools throughout the country. The 2014 AMSA Scorecard, however, reflected changes to the scoring methodology that better assessed the nuances of medical center and industry relationships. Based on feedback from various stakeholders including practicing clinicians, faculty, trainees, policy analysts, and the recommendations from an Expert Task Force of medical school deans and compliance officers, AMSA revised the scorecard to include new domains to further the standards of COI policies. This successful framework is continued in the 2018 AMSA Scorecard.
AMSA established the Just Medicine, formerly PharmFree Campaign, in 2002 and this campaign continues to advocate for: evidence-based rather than marketing-based prescribing practices, global access to essential medicines, and the removal of conflicts of interest in medicine. AMSA provides toolkits, educational materials, and training sessions to help medical students advance towards these goals. For these and numerous other resources, please visit the Just Medicine website.
The next AMSA Scorecard will be released in 2018. Submit policies or policy updates for medical institutions here (coming soon!).
Contact: amsa@amsa.org
Press: pr@amsa.org
Suggested Citation: AMSA Scorecard 2018. <<Title of Web Page>> (online), <<URL of Specific Web Page>>, Sterling, VA: American Medical Student Association <<Date Accessed>>.
Avanthi Jayaweera, 2018 Education & Advocacy Fellow
American Medical Student Association
*The AMSA Scorecard is indebted to Jay Bhatt, Davekumar Chandrasekaran, Bich-May Nguyen, Lainie Ori, and Justin Sanders, whose hard work and creativity produced the first AMSA PharmFree Scorecard in 2007.
*DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts.