American Medical Student Association

Stanford Reveals Faculty Consulting Relationships Online

Stanford University School of Medicine has joined a small number of medical schools publicly disclosing details of faculty members’ consulting activities online.

The site displays the consulting arrangements of its 1,400 affiliated faculty. Stanford’s efforts come in the wake of high-profile unethical relationships exposed through congressional investigations of faculty at a number of medical schools including Harvard and Emory universities.

Stanford lists faculty who received $5,000 or more for consulting, board memberships, talks or advisory services, and the companies with which these activities were associated. The postings are culled from the information annually submitted by faculty members reporting those relationships.

Several years ago, the medical school began regulating interactions with industry. In 2006, the school adopted a policy outlawing physicians from accepting gifts, free meals and drug samples. Stanford limited industry marketing at its medical center and restricted industry support of educational activities. It became one of the few schools to enact a policy prohibiting drug and device companies from directly supporting continuing medical education.

The online postings are Stanford’s latest effort to prevent financial interests from creating bias in teaching, patient care or research. When faculty members annually update conflict-of-interest information to the school, this data will automatically appear in the members’ profiles on the disclosure site: med.stanford.edu/profiles.

Harvard Medical School Yanks, Is Revising Policy on Student Contact With Media

Harvard Medical School (HMS) has pulled a controversial policy governing students’ interaction with the media and is working with students to revise the policy interpreted as restricting students’ freedom of speech.
The wording added online in late August to the student handbook, and removed weeks later, upset students, media outlets and First Amendment advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

The attention prompted Dr. Jules L. Dienstag, dean for medical education, to e-mail students stating that they were “absolutely free to speak with the media about anything they wish.”

The policy, which HMS prefers to call a “guideline,” suggested that all interactions between students and media be coordinated with the office of the dean of students and office of public affairs, according to the school.

HMS stated the policy had nothing to do with limiting freedom of speech; rather it was introduced to ensure students were sensitive to patient information and, particularly, confidentiality. The school conceded that the policy’s wording could have been misinterpreted. A new policy had yet to be announced at press time.
David Cameron, university spokesman, says that the handbook addition was not in response to a March New York Times article about students speaking up to expose and curtail industry influence at the school.
The article detailed 200 HMS students, including four AMSA members pictured with the article, protesting influence in HMS’ classrooms, laboratories and affiliated hospitals.

The students pointed out Harvard’s grade of “F” assigned by the American Medical Student Association scorecard that rates medical schools and their control of drug industry money.

Medical Students Under Fire and Amid the Rubble

Wright State University School of Medicine has created its Division of Tactical Emergency Medi-cine (DTEM) to train public safety and medical personnel to practice in dangerous law enforcement situations.

The school has also begun construction of its National Center for Medical Readiness Tactical Laboratory (NCMR-TL) to teach students how to respond in cases of natural and man-made disasters.
Dr. James E. Brown, acting chairman and residency program director in the department of emergency medicine, says courses in tactical medicine had existed at the university for more than a decade, but the program now has an official name. A number of students are former military members with combat medicine experience.

Only a few programs of this kind exist nationwide, according to the school.

DTEM adapts medical military training for civilian law-enforcement personnel such as police SWAT teams. Doctors, emergency medical services personnel and other care providers trained in tactical medicine share their knowledge with their counterparts, medical school faculty and resident physicians, and others.
In real-life situations requiring tactical medicine assistance, care providers would be placed in an area further from the actual scene of danger. The program teams up with sports medicine physicians, because sprains and strains are common injuries among law-enforcement members.

Wright State hopes eventually to create a 24-hour support center for regional law-enforcement agencies, in which medical school personnel can assist as needed. Such an effort could involve emergency physicians and medical residents, who will learn on the job to manage injuries in combat situations and possibly under the threat of being fired upon. Program participants also will receive some training on disabling a weapon.
Concerning the school’s coming disaster readiness program NCMR-TL, its technical laboratory is dubbed “Calamityville.” It features realistic simulations of disaster environments such as confined spaces, elevated platforms, wilderness, rubble piles, silos and tunnels, and the scenes of transportation mishaps.

It will also teach dealing with situations that include helping submerged victims. A simulated hospital will be on hand, according to Wright State.

The goal is to train personnel to access trapped and missing individuals, provide the highest level of medical or fatality care in an environment with limited resources, evacuating patients most safely and effectively, and interacting with established medical facilities, the school says.

For Hispanics, Highly Ranked Medical Schools

A list of the “best” medical schools for Hispanics, including student recruitment and retention, was published in Hispanic Business magazine’s annual rankings of graduate schools and medical schools in its September issue.

The accolades are partially based on the percentage of full-time Hispanic faculty and percentage of Hispanic students enrolled. The magazine also considers factors such as its ranking in U.S. News & World Report.
Of the 10 medical schools listed, four from Texas are recognized. The top five schools in descending order are Stanford Uni-versity School of Medicine; University of Miami School of Medicine; University of Texas Southwestern Medical School; University of Texas Medical School at Houston; and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Coming in at 10th was the University of Texas Medical School at Galveston.