Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Dear Uloric,

Thank you for inviting me to watch "leading physicians" discuss your product.

Honestly, however, all I see in this picture are 2 gents who appear to be desperately in need of a men's room.





In fact, they look sort of like I do on weekend call (though better dressed), loaded with Diet Coke, having no time to pee, smiling blandly as the ER pages me again, and wondering how much it would hurt to put a catheter in until Monday morning to save time.

15 comments:

Albinoblackbear said...

Maybe if they'd lay off the diuretics they wouldn't have to worry about that gout so much. =)

(Couldn't help myself, I've been listening to Lord Goljan talk about kidneys all morning).

Not House said...

If Dr. Oz has taught me one thing its that unless you wear scrubs everywhere you go, you're clearly not an authority on anything.

Lucky Jack said...

As a non-physician/hopefully soon-to-be physician, I don't know much about these doctors who are paid to talk about drugs/devices. However, is it just me, or does it seem kind of unethical to pay a doctor to recommend something? Or does everyone do this? Does that make it OK? Do you docs take these guys with handfuls of salt so that it doesn't really matter?

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Technically, the talks focus on treatment of the condition, of which the product being sponsored is one mentioned, but others are discussed. That's by FDA guidelines.

Also, I don't see it any differently than a celebrity endorsing cars, Nikes, or Diet Coke. You have to take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt.

Except, of course, your blood pressure medications.

Knot Telling said...

Dr. Chad Boomershine? Seriously? BOOMERshine? BoomerSHINE?

I know it's a cheap shot, riffing on someone's name, but Dr. CHAD Boomershine?

I don't know where to begin.

Lucky Jack said...

Yeah I hear you. I guess it especially makes sense if these docs are talking to other docs who see them as peers. And I for one say you guys should get paid any way you can for the work you do. However, the difference I see with celebs plugging Coke is that nobody gives a crap about what the Kardashian's think you should do/eat/buy. Sure, they influence people's decisions (i.e. advertising works), but But my sense is that many lay people take the word of docs as the word of god, for better or for worse. Thus, if my doc tells me I should take drug X, I'm basically not going argue because I have no idea if he's right or wrong, or whether this is in fact the best treatment for me... I would hope that the doc is 100% unaffected by marketing in his choice of drug for me, know what I'm saying. I guess I'm holding physicians to a higher standard, which might be unfair.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

They are directly geared to other physicians. I occasionally do them myself.

Lucky Jack said...

Interesting/hilarious experience. Yeah, my honest opinion is that I don't hold it against you or any other doc. 1) I'm sure you have standards for what you plug. 2)You plug it to people who are versed in drugs - very different from plugging drugs to a lay person. 3) We's all gotta get paid :)

I'm sorry if all this seems like a naive POV. Like any other trade, I know there are conventions in medicine that we on the outside are unfamiliar with; hopefully I'll become more familiar with them soon enough.

Anonymous said...

I've seen ads for this medication on TV, and it rather amuses me that one of the potential side effects of this gout medicine is gout flares. I'm not a doctor, but that seems counterproductive, no?

Packer said...

They are lawyers just gathering the evidence before the cases start rolling in.

suingu, my verification word. Wow how to you do that.

Anonymous said...

yeah, you do look like the doc in the pic, i mean, the bald one :D :D :D

D. said...

They're casting their nets for "urologists" where they need to make the search term " urologists" or to exclude "neurologists."

Why, yes, I do know my way around databases. Unlike marketing people. < / grouse >

Anonymous said...

Next time you are on-call and loaded up on diet Coke, get yourself some lidocaine gel and put that cath in...how bad could it really hurt????

Had a pt who was a doctor and had to put a cath in him and he wouldn't get the cath without the lidocaine gel first...I told him that I would give it to him as long as he always would order the lidocaine gel for his pt's prior to catherization...worked

The Mother said...

Having spent several weeks trying desperately to convince my flagging pelvic musculature to work harder, I gave up, got a long-range wireless phone, and answer calls in the bathroom.

Hey, whatever works.

Robert said...

You guys have it all wrong. That's an excellent demonstration of the "fig leaf" maneuver. Clearly someone off camera just yelled, "X-ray!!"

 
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