Some light(?) summer reading, brought to you by Anne Taylor-Vaisey:

Retractions in the research literature: misconduct or mistakes?

Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions Annual Award for Excellence in Research [free PDFs]

Teaching on the Run Tips: A series from the Medical Journal of Australia

According to this article from the Viriginia State Journal, a little blurb made a big uproar recently. It appears that the March/April issue of the West Virginia Medical Journal included a blurb saying, “ABPS Now Offering Board Certification in Disaster Medicine.”

While ABPS (the American Board of Physician Specialties Inc.), which “offers board exams and certification for physicians in a variety of medical specialties,” says it is offering board certification in disaster medicine, Dr. Thomas Sporck, the journal’s editor, said in the article:

“… In my professional career, what we’ve always looked at as far as governance for board certification is the American Board of Medical Specialties.”

For the nitty-gritty details, check out the article. Interesting, in a turf-wars sort of way.

According to this article from The Age (Australia), docs often demand gifts from pharma. A snip:

THE biggest investigation into gifts to medical specialists has found they actively ask for gifts from companies worth between $50 and $100,000.



The requests extend to money for nurses’ salaries, donations to their departments, computers, microwaves, journals, textbooks, CDs — even funds for a Christmas party.

It also says:

Of the one in two specialists offered travel to conferences, two-thirds accepted and most attended the meetings as audience members, not speakers. The authors — who included ethics and medical professors from the University of Sydney and the University of Newcastle — recommended in their report the end of direct payments from drug companies for travel. Industry funds for travel should be distributed through an independent group, the report said.

This reminds me of an editorial I wrote a while back for Medical Meetings about how docs sometimes try to “extort” commercial support for their CME programs. The blame goes both ways.

The writer of this editorial in the New York Times thinks so:

The doctors always insist that they can‘t be bought. But a former sales representative for two drug companies said the lunches were “incredibly effective” in lifting the number of prescriptions from practices that got the free food, and a medical school doctor who is examining the issue believes the lunches do influence prescribing. Some doctors seem to rely on free lunches as a fringe benefit for their staffs.

I recently received a press release announcing that Dermatology Nursing has won a Gold Circle Award from ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership’s 2006 Communication Gold Circle Awards Program. It won in the peer-reviewed journal category for associations with a budget of $2 million or less. From the press release:

The Gold Circle Awards recognize leadership and achievement within the association community. According to the judges, Dermatology Nursing stood out from more than 250 entries and was recognized as a good reference and resource for readers. In addition, judges noted Dermatology Nursing designs its content in a straightforward, readable way and uses images to add relevance and usefulness to the reader.

Congratulations!

This article in the New York Times takes a look at how docs should be trained on medical devices—and who should do the training. A snip:

Last summer, rival cardiologists in Rock Hill, S.C., decided to learn how to perform a lucrative new procedure, implanting a defibrillator, a device that protects against fatal heart rhythms. Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill, S.C., has set its own standards for implanting defibrillators. One doctor attended weekend classroom sessions sponsored by a professional medical organization, passed a daylong written test given by that group and implanted defibrillators in 10 patients while an expert observed.



But by then, four other doctors at a competing practice had left him in the dust, implanting 75 devices. They chose a separate training program, provided free and tailored to their liking by a little-known device maker named Biotronik. Only one of the four doctors so far has taken the recommended daylong competency test. The training also apparently had unorthodox elements: two doctors sometimes trained together on one patient, a technique that experts called highly unusual.

Then there’s always the issue of conflict of interest and bias when the company does the training, which the article goes into at some length. Definitely worth a read.