Friday, February 20, 2009

Internal Medicine 2009, ACP’s annual meeting

---is coming up in April. Get a load of the industry sponsorship brochure. In addition, based on last year’s meeting, over 30 drug companies and around 40 device companies are expected to lease space in the exhibit hall. If the current purge against industry supported CME wins, what will happen to meetings such as this? Support from the non-profits, recruiting firms and book vendors (if they survive the purge) would be inadequate to sustain a meeting of this scope. If industry support is banned, the ACP would no doubt find a way to continue the meeting with some combination of increased registration fees and a markedly reduced selection of educational content, but it could not survive in its present form. It’s about educational content, not nice things.

Is this what we really want? The Coalition for Healthcare Communication mentions the Medscape Roundtable and provides links for readers to express concerns to the AMA and political representatives.

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