Poor marks for medical schools

An assessment of how the nation's medical schools handle conflict-of-interest issues with drug companies has given only one a passing grade while the rest got a "D" or "F".

Australia's 20 medical schools were also seen to underperform when compared to their US counterparts, when it came to the policies in place to ensure their students were protected from undue influence from the pharmaceutical industry.

"Industry promotes itself and its products to academics, doctors in practise and medical students in a number of ways," said Dr Paul Mason, Royal Melbourne Hospital, who undertook the assessment along with Professor Martin Tattersall, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

"These include the provision of gifts, drug samples, honoraria for research and speaking engagements, travel funding and payments for being on advisory boards.

"Conflicts may also arise from the provision of gifts or discretionary finding from industry to individual institutions."

The pair said while research showed medical students believed they were immune to influence, they were vulnerable and attitudes formed during these years would persist into their professional life.

Some of the schools also relied on industry to provide a "significant proportion" of their operating budgets, and so needed to have the "highest possible ethical standards" in place.

"Overall, medical schools in the US have more robust policies governing potential conflicts-of-interest than their Australian counterparts," they said.

"... Our results indicate a need for improved self-regulation of conflicts of interest by Australian medical schools."

The medical schools were surveyed and their various policies, or lack thereof, were compared to "model practise" to arrive at a grade (A to D, or F).

James Cook University in Queensland received the top mark with a C as, in most categories, it was deemed to be making "good progress".

The Australian National University and Monash University were among those which received a D while Griffith University received an F.

Three medical schools received an F for not responding to the survey while five more were not rated because they were in a process of broad policy review.

Professor James Angus, Medical Deans president said the medical schools were striving to ensure the "right balance" on how staff and students engaged with the industry.

"A lot of work has been done on conflict-of-interest issues across many universities in the past 18 months," Prof Angus said.

"While this issue is the domain of individual universities, Medical Deans will continue to examine whether there is a need for best-practice guidelines that can be adopted across all Australian universities.

The University of NSW also released a statement saying the assessment "may no longer accurately reflect the situation in many Australian medical schools" as it was conducted in 2009.

"UNSW Medicine for one has had a full complement of conflict-of-interest policies in place since the end of 2009," a spokesman said.

In 2006, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission required Medicines Australia, the industry representative body to publish detailed costings of the hospitality and entertainment provided at educational events for medical practitioners.

This was later broadened to include pharmacists.

The assessment is published in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.