Trust and Transparency: Patient Perceptions of Physicians' Financial Relationships with Pharmaceutical Companies

Financial relationships and business transactions between physicians and the health care industry are common. These relationships take a variety of forms, including payments to physicians in exchange for consulting services, reimbursement of physician travel expenses when attending medical device and pharmaceutical educational conferences, physician ownership in life science company stocks, and the provision of free drug samples. Such practices are not intrinsic to medical practice, but as the Institute of Medicine described in its 2009 report, these relationships have the potential to produce positive collaborations that improve patient care and public health, and most physicians view it as “ethically proper to accept items ranging from drug samples to a lucrative consultantship.” However, financial relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies can also create negative influences on physician judgment that compromise patient care and jeopardize the public’s trust.