Background & Link to 2008 Results
Contact Information & Suggested Citation
2010-2011 AMSA PharmFree Scorecard Staff
The public, policymakers and leaders within the medical profession are increasingly focused on the potential for financial conflicts of interest to influence medical care, threaten the doctor-patient relationship, and undermine trust in the medical profession. Medical schools and academic medical centers have played a powerful leadership role in setting new standards for the profession, supported by strong guidelines set by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in the summer of 2008 and the Institute of Medicine in spring 2009.
The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) released the first "PharmFree Scorecard" in 2007. This initial Scorecard graded medical schools on the presence or absence of a policy regulating the interactions between their students and faculty and the pharmaceutical and device industries. In 2008, AMSA worked with The Prescription Project to develop an updated Scorecard, which used a rigorous and transparent methodology to assess the content of policies at medical schools throughout the country. This successful framework is continued in the 2009 AMSA PharmFree Scorecard.
AMSA established its PharmFree Campaign in 2002, and this campaign continues to advocate for evidence-based rather than marketing-based prescribing practices, global access to essential medicines, and the removal of conflicts of interest in medicine. AMSA provides toolkits, educational materials, and training institutes to help medical students advance these goals. For these and numerous other resources, please visit AMSA’s PharmFree website (www.pharmfree.org).
The Prescription Project, created by The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2006 to promote evidence-based prescribing and reduce conflicts of interest caused by drug marketing, became the Pew Prescription Project in 2009. The project created a series of toolkits for medical centers working to strengthen policies on conflict of interest, and has provided technical assistance to students and faculty addressing these issues.
For an archive of the 2008 policy assessments, click here.
If you are a medical school administration official and would like to be listed as the primary contact for your institution, please contact us at scorecard@amsascorecard.org. For more information about revising your institution’s evaluation, please click here.
Contact: scorecard@amsascorecard.org
Press: press@amsascorecard.org
Suggested Citation: AMSA PharmFree Scorecard 2009. <<Title of Web Page>> (online), <<URL of Specific Web Page>>, Reston, VA: American Medical Student Association <<Date Accessed>>.
Tim Anderson, 2010-2011 Scorecard Director
American Medical Student Association
Lee Shapely, 2010-2011 Assistant Scorecard Director
American Medical Student Association
Shari Dogbo, Project Manager
American Medical Student Association Foundation
Ian Kramer, Independent Blinded Assessor
American Medical Student Association Foundation
Tunde Akinseye, Independent Blinded Assessor
American Medical Student Association Foundation
Jack Rusley, 2009-2010 Scorecard Director
American Medical Student Association
Branden Pfefferkorn, 2009 Scorecard Director
American Medical Student Association
Gabriel Silverman, Co-Creator*, Advisor and 2008 Scorecard Director
American Medical Student Association
Allan Coukell, Co-Creator*, Advisor
The Pew Prescription Project
Gabrielle Cosel, Advisor
The Pew Prescription Project
Ian Reynolds, Training Advisor
Community Catalyst
*The AMSA PharmFree Scorecard is indebted to Jay Bhatt, Davekumar Chandrasekaran, Bich-May Nguyen, Lainie Ori, and Justin Sanders, whose hard work and creativity produced the first AMSA PharmFree Scorecard in 2007. The creation of the Scorecard in its current form would not have been possible without the tireless dedication of Paige Clark, AMSA Director of Student Programming 2007-2008, and Rebecca Sadun, AMSA Director of Student Programming 2008-2009.
We thank Anthony Fleg, National PharmFree Chair 2007-2008, Nitin Roper, National PharmFree Chair 2008-2009, Gabriel Palley, National PharmFree Chair 2009-2010, Chris Manz, National PharmFree Chair 2010-2011, as well as all AMSA members who have helped advance conflict-of-interest policies at their academic medical centers.
Last but not least, we thank our indespensible press team, Kim Cunningham at AMSA and Kathy Melley at Community Catalyst.