The Invasion of Doctor's Offices By Something Other Than Germs

After our discussion of the pharmaceutical advertising in America, I began to think of Drug Representatives, and how this is seen as a sound profession in this country. Basically, Drug Reps are people who go around to doctors offices, enticing the doctors with a whole lot of junk (pens, notepads, etc.) so that the doctor will write a prescription for their product. In essence, these drug reps are just legalized drug dealers, which I think is kinda bizarre.

My sister is currently in her last year of pharmacy school and as a requirement for graduation, has to go on rotations where she works in various clinics and pharmacies to get a sense for opportunities in the pharmaceutical field. On one of her rotations at a nursing home for the elderly, she described how she witnessed one of these drug reps who came into the home dressed in scrubs so that they could better connect with the doctors who also wore scrubs (she could identify the rep based on the fact that drug reps wear badges, and she saw this badge pinned to his scrubs); after all, a doctor is probably more likely to sit down with and listen to a drug rep who is dressed in the same attire as he or she is, rather than one who is dressed in a fancy business suite and might be seen as too fancy for a hospital like setting. It is just weird the lengths that these people will go to in order to sell their product. She was describing another time when she happened to be in a doctor's office outside of work and she noticed that all of the receptionist were writing with pens advertising a drug, on pads of paper advertising this same drugs, in addition to posters for this drug being prominently displayed. It was a clear sign that the office had been visited by a drug rep.

I think this whole concept is just plain disturbing because it makes you wonder how many doctors write prescriptions for unnecessary drugs just because of these drug reps and their peddling of persciption drugs. Especially unnerving is the fact that drug reps don't need to have a background in medicine or pharmacy which means they probably have little knowledge about their drugs, other than what they learned from the company that makes the drug.