I have always thought it interesting that pharmaceutical reps showed up at my doctor's office on an alarming basis with platters of food to go along with their drug samples.
As a communications professional, I recognized that they were using these lunches to help doctors and their staff remember them, and hopefully their drug of choice.
Funny that I never noticed the pens and the notepads, or at least they didn't seem to bother me all that much.
But now it seems that in a bid to burnish their image, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America revamped its code of conduct to ban knickknacks with company and product logos. They also outlawed taking a doctor out to a meal in a restaurant, but retained the right to bring lunch into the office.
How many doctors go out to a restaurant with a pharma rep anyway? Unless of course you are one of these pharma reps of course.
Hmm, maybe without the logo pen the doc will have a harder time remembering who provided his lunch.
What do you think?
Photo by Sara Lee Ann
