Thanks to new disclosure requirements from the University of Wisconsin’s doctor group, the Wisconsin State Journal‘s David Wahlberg was able to report that 10 UW-Madison doctors received $48,000 or more from drug and device companies.
Thomas Zdeblick, M.D., pulled in almost $1.7 million. In fact, most of them were orthopedic surgeons, a fact which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been following the State Journal‘s conflict-of-interest work, as well as that of the Journal Sentinel‘s John Fauber.
Before 2010, doctors only had to report that they’d received more than $20,000 from such industry associations. Now, they have to disclose specific amounts. The disclosure requirements are currently the most prominent component of the schools’ crackdown of conflicts of interest, but activists say conflict disclosure is only half the battle.
A policy adopted in 2009 by the UW Medical Foundation, the university’s doctor group, bans doctors from doing promotional speeches for companies and accepting gifts such as free meals. Surgeons, however, can use materials created by device companies to conduct government-required training sessions, Golden said.
The foundation’s policy prohibits doctors from receiving royalties for using products at UW Health, which removes any incentive to use the doctors’ products instead of others, Golden said.
An interesting side note: UW clinics post signs detailing how patients can obtain their doctor’s disclosure form, but such requests have been few and far between, Wahlberg found “14 in 2009, 18 in 2010 and seven” in 2011.
