Should a doctor accept the invitations of the drug companies?
I am a Doctor.Can I receive gifts & dinner-offers by medical representatives.They offer these things so that we promote their drugs irrespective of price & quality
Praise be to Allaah.
If you are a doctor working on your own account (i.e., in a
clinic of your own), then it is permissible for you to accept the
invitations of these companies, on condition that you do not let that
influence the kind of medicine you give to the sick. Rather you should
prescribe the best medicine for the patient, paying attention to the price,
or you should give him the freedom to choose. On this basis, your acceptance
of the invitations extended by these companies should be to enable you to
find out what kind of medicines etc. they have to offer. By the same token,
if you are not working for yourself, if you accept these invitations simply
to acquaint yourself with the company’s products, that is o.k., but if that
will make you biased towards one company rather than another because of
these invitations or because of gifts that they have given to you, then that
is not right. If you are not working in your own clinic, and you have
influence in the hospital where you work such that they will buy the kind of
medicine that you advise them to buy, then it is better to avoid these
invitations in order to be on the safe side.