The Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine recently published a report examining opinions about the conflict of interest between physicians and industry-sponsored education.
It has become common practice for medical device companies to pay surgeons as faculty for educational events and give financial support to professional society meetings. The researchers asked about this conflict of interest in a survey and received 501 responses.
According to the study abstract, more than 90 percent of respondents felt industry funding for surgeons' tuition and travel to industry-sponsored or professional society educational meetings did not impact the quality of care or would improve it. Surgeons receiving industry payments for teaching other surveys generated similar responses.
Most of the respondents also believed this relationship was ethical or had no opinion of surgeons who maintained these relationships. Respondents were largely in favor of educational conferences regardless of funding sources, but disclosure of these relationships was important as well.
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