Drug rep creates stir with details on tricks of his trade
Drug reps are carefully trained to target a physician with tactics suitable to his or her personality, according to a recently published article co-authored by a former Eli Lilly and Co. detailer, Shahram Ahari, MPH. He says detailers come armed with an array of techniques aimed at changing the physician's prescribing behavior. Here are the tactics Ahari used with physicians, depending on their disposition.
The paper came out in April, but I have not noticed much reaction to it on medblogs. Will this new interview stir the pot now?
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in case you are a physician looking for a reason to avoid drug reps,
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Huh. Doesn't sound much more complicated than selling cars. I wonder if the same techniques could work to change other behaviors of physicians. For example, can we circumvent illegible handwriting by encouraging the use of E-prescribing via a PDA with a good white paper, or will we need to send a pretty grad student to demonstrate the use of the device too?
Tree, willing to give the Devil his due to promote patient safety