US junior doctors found to be ignorant of drug companies' tactics

Although drug companies spend billions of dollars on marketing their products and have been successful in influencing doctors' prescribing decisions, a new study shows that only a small proportion of medical residency programmes in the United States teach doctors how to deal with such pressures (Academic Medicine 2004;79: 432-7).

Dr Raquel Watkins, lead author of the study and assistant professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical …