Conflict of Interest at Med Schools (podcast)
A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed on Yoni Freedhoff’s excellent Weighty Matters blog. The blog entry and podcast are here: Milk, conflicts of interest, and med-school profs.
Here’s a bit from the blog, setting up the issue:
…should University professors disclose their potential conflicts of interest before lecturing students? I certainly don’t remember any professors disclosing their ties to anyone during my medical school days at the University of Toronto yet it’s an obligatory practice for those same professors to do so at conferences and in journal articles.
To me this seems like a dangerous double standard as one might argue that students are far more vulnerable than full fledged physicians and researchers in critically appraising data. Given the incredible power differential between professor and student and the intrinsic trust one places in the purveyors of their education I wondered about the ethics of such a lack of disclosure and so I contacted Dr. Chris MacDonald to chat about this further….
The direct link to the audio podcast is here: MacDonald on Conflict of Interest.
(We’ve blogged before about this issue. See: Harvard Med School Students Push for Stricter Conflict of Interest Policy.)
Research Ethics Blog 