Congratulations to Lawrence Sherman, president, Business Development, Jobson Education Group; Carolyn Darrow, MPH, director of continuing medical education for Quintiles Medical Communications; Michael Lemon, MBA, president, Postgraduate Institute for Medicine; and Brian P. Russell, RPh, president, Vox Medica, for their recent election to the Board of Directors for the North American Association of Medical Education and Communication Companies. Our booth at the AMA Task Force meeting last week was next to Quintiles, and I got the unofficial word then about Carolyn’s new role at NAAMECC (she so impresses me), and they can’t go wrong with Lawrence (who, incidentally, is one of the all-time great facilitators I’ve seen. His sessions at last year’s Alliance meeting rocked!).

With all the MECC-bashing I heard last week in Baltimore, they’re coming in at a rough time for this segment of the med ed industry, but, as Brian told me at lunch on Wednesday, they’re more than up to the challenge. I know I’ll be watching to see what they’re up to.

My Capsules co-blogger Anne Taylor-Vaisey sent me this article from Nature, which was referenced in the latest BMJ: Cash interests taint drug advice. It’s an interesting read, but even more interesting, in a Friday goof-off kind of way, is what comes up under “related articles.” As Anne says in her e-mail, strange!

From a press release:

For the past two years, Marriott hotels across the country have raised thousands of dollars for the Anthony J. Jannetti Nursing Scholarship Fund (administered under the Banner Health Foundation, Phoenix, Arizona) for nurses practicing advanced education. On November 1, 2005, in recognition of Marriott’s past generosity, and in light of the hardships Marriott’s New Orleans hotels and staff have endured following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Jannetti will make a special donation. He will redirect the $42,000 in funds intended for nursing scholarships towards Marriott associates and their families in New Orleans, who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Janetti and Mike Stengel, General Manager of the New York Marriott Marquis, will present the funds to Mark Sanders, Area General Manager for Marriott’s New Orleans hotels, on behalf of the New Orleans Marriott Business Council. The Business Council is a group which is represented by General Managers of Marriott hotels in New Orleans and the surrounding area.

Wow, this is really something. Talk about the power of partnership—good job, Mr. Janetti!

I know, I know, this has nothing to do with anything, but isn’t it the weirdest thing you’ve seen lately? (Click here for the gory, yarny details.)

This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey: Have you ever wondered why Google is so fast and relatively effective? Here is the explanation … PigeonRank™

As an animal lover, I find the following comforting:

Google exceeds all international standards for the ethical treatment of its pigeon personnel. Not only are they given free range of the coop and its window ledges, special break rooms have been set up for their convenience. These rooms are stocked with an assortment of delectable seeds and grains and feature the finest in European statuary for roosting.

Read all about Google’s patented PigeonRank™ here.

This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey: Here are some items of possible interest from the current BMJ:

The need for outcome measures in medical education

Lambert Schuwirth, Peter Cantillon

BMJ 2005;331:977-978, doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.977

Doctors who write guidelines often have ties to the drug industry

Janice Hopkins Tanne

BMJ 2005;331:982, doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.982-a

What the educators are saying

Kevin W Eva, Val Wass

BMJ 2005;331:1006, doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.1006

ABC of health informatics: How computers help make efficient use of consultations

Frank Sullivan, Jeremy C Wyatt

BMJ 2005;331:1010-1012, doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.1010

Sorry to have been so quiet this week! I had every intention of writing about everything that was happening at the Annual Conference of the National Task Force on CME

provider/Industry Collaboration in Baltimore this week, but couldn’t get to my laptop any time other than when I should have been sleeping.

Anyway, a reader today wrote me about a short talk Lewis Morris Esq., chief counsel for the

OIG, gave at the meeting. In his discussion of the recent Serono settlement, he tossed off the fact that Serono has a CME organization called Serono Symposia. You should have heard the gasps from the audience. I mean, talk about a conflict of interest. I know this used to be a fairly widespread practice back in the day, but I was told a couple of years ago that pharma companies had pretty much shut these down by now. But, I guess, not Serono.

A quick skip through Serono Symposia shows that it is accredited by several agencies, including the ACCME, and also that most of its educational programs are supported solely by Serono or one of its co-marketing partners. One example, from a reproductive health activity:

This program is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Serono, Inc. In addition, Serono Symposia International personnel are employees of Serono, Inc. and Serono Symposia, International, Inc. also receives other in-kind support from Serono, Inc. in the form of space and administrative services.

Yes, fertility is one of Serono’s clinical categories, and though the site says no promotional activities are permitted and any discussions of investigational uses are solely the responsibility of the presenter, the company also has a speakers bureau (and on that site, the company offers operational support for speakers presenting at its own programs).

What on earth is going on with this? I mean, independent CME providers are freaking out about protecting their independence and providing bias-free education, while pharma is supporting and providing its own educational arm, complete with speakers from its own bureau? And this in a company that just agreed to a huge settlement for improperly promoting one of its drugs?

Medical education companies got blasted a few times at the meeting for being accredited while getting most of their revenues from industry—but this is OK? Someone, help me understand this one. I don’t get it.

P.S. Much, much more to come about the Task Force meeting as soon as a get a chance to get caught up. It was a good one!

This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey: Published in the October 24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine are this editorial and study:

Benson AB, III. In search of evidence: Is there the will and a way? [editorial]. Arch Intern Med 2005; 165(19):2194-2195.

Excerpt: Scientifically, politically, economically and perceptually, there are growing demands by both society as a whole and the medical profession that evidence must drive clinical decision pathways. The best level of evidence as incorporated into clinical practice guidelines originates from randomized clinical trial data. For many years, the process of obtaining objective clinical data has been a path across a minefield. Even under the most optimal circumstances, obstacles confront most clinical research projects that can delay the reporting of important clinical information.

In this issue of the ARCHIVES, Embi et al present the use of the electronic health record (EHR)-based clinical trial alert (CTA) system to address the problem of rapid subject recruitment by physicians, one of the recognized obstacles that can delay successful completion of a clinical trial. Although the authors recognize the limitations of this particular CTA intervention, including a small number of physicians at a single institution, along with the use of a single EHR to test a single clinical trial, this article serves as an invitation to incorporate the evolving use of technology in the clinical practice setting to enhance all phases of the clinical research process.

Journal link

Potential conflicts of interest appear to abound for Conor Medsystems Inc., which is hoping to take a chunk of the stent market from big boys like Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific Corp. According to an article in BusinessWeek“

Yet Conor’s technology is difficult to assess, in part because some doctors helping to evaluate the devices have received stock options from the company. Among the 14 doctors who sit on Conor’s scientific advisory board and are participating in clinical trials of its stent, three received consulting fees and five have received options, according to documents obtained by BusinessWeek…



Columbia, Stanford, and Scripps say that their doctors who are affiliated with Conor have not violated any rules, and Conor also says that it has done nothing improper. Company execs say they paid doctors for their expertise with options since, as a small startup, Conor had little cash.




It’s difficult to specify the value of compensation that each doctor receives because Conor does not release that data. In their disclosures made to medical conferences, doctors must reveal the type of compensation they receive, such as stock ownership, but not its value.

This post courtesy of Anne Taylor-Vaisey: Earlier this month, the 2005 Ig Nobel awards from the Annals of Improbable Research (HotAIR) were granted. You can even watch a video of the awards ceremony.

Here is a sample of the winners:

For literature:

The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters — General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others — each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them. [We have ALL received e-mail from them!]

For peace:

Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, in the U.K., for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie “Star Wars.”

REFERENCE: “Orthopteran DCMD Neuron: A Reevaluation of Responses to Moving Objects. I. Selective Responses to Approaching Objects,” F.C. Rind and P.J. Simmons, Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 68, no. 5, November 1992, pp. 1654-66.

For chemistry:

Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water?

REFERENCE: “Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?” American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.

Read about them all here.

The awards even received a notice in the October 15 issue of BMJ:

Mr Buckley’s exploding trousers and other scientific observations