Is a Doctor Like a Toaster? Earning Trust in the Profession of Medicine

• Published in: Academic psychiatry 2017-06, Vol.41 (3), p.305-308
• Main Author: Roberts, Laura Weiss
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access to Health Care; Attrition (Research Studies); Clinical competence; Conflict of Interest; Conflicts of interest; Disease; Drug overdose; Editorial; Educational Experience; Graduate Medical Education; Health care access; Health care policy; Humans; Legislation; Legislators; Medical Education; Medical Errors - prevention & control; Medical malpractice; Medical profession; Medical Services; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental Disorders; Mortality; Narcotics; Negligence; Patient safety; Patients; Pharmaceutical industry; Physician-Patient Relations; Physicians; Psychiatry; Reverse mortgages; Trust
• ISSN: 1042-9670; 1545-7230
• DOI: 10.1007/s40596-017-0715-3

Continued public scrutiny of conflict of interest between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry has been intensified by Senator Grassley’s and Senator Kohl’s Sunshine Act legislation, which requires that a financial exchange of $100 or more from makers of pharmaceuticals, devices, and biologic agents to physicians and biomedical researchers be publicly disclosed [15]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2013, prior to the ACA’s adoption in 2014, showed that 41% of Hispanic, 25% of African American, 16% of Asian, and 15% of white adults, aged 18–64, lacked health insurance in the USA, and many did not obtain necessary care due to cost [22]. Looking ahead, advancing efforts to improve health outcomes and transform quality and safety standards have emerged as a foremost commitment across the entire US health care system [29]. [...]the engagement of medicine with new technologies in health care has already led to innovation in clinical practices and opened up opportunities for better population health [30]. [...]a groundbreaking randomized trial published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine involving 4330 surgical residents in programs with more and less restrictive duty hours showed no difference in the health outcomes of the 138,691 patients for whom the residents provided care. [...]unexpectedly, no difference was found to exist in the residents’ perceptions of overall well-being and quality of their educational experience [32].