Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine
As most Americans know, conflicts of interest riddle the US health care system. They
result from physicians practicing medicine as entrepreneurs, from physicians' ties to
pharma, and from investor-owned firms and insurers' influence over physicians' medial
choices. These conflicts raise questions about physicians' loyalty to their patients and
their professional and economic independence. The consequences of such conflicts of
interest are often devastating for the patients-and society-stuck in the middle. In Conflicts
of Interest and the Future of Medicine, Marc Rodwin examines the development of
these conflicts in the US, France, and Japan.
He shows that national differences in the organization of medical practice and the
interplay of organized medicine, the market, and the state give rise to variations in the
type and prevalence of such conflicts. He then analyzes the strategies that each nation
employs to cope with them. Unfortunately, many proposals to address physicians' conflicts
of interest do not offer solutions that stick. But drawing on the experiences of these
three nations, Rodwin demonstrates that we can mitigate these problems with carefully
planned reform and regulation.
He examines a range of measures that can be taken in the private and public sector to
preserve medical professionalism-and concludes that there just might be more than one
prescription to this seemingly incurable malady. This book provides thoughtful insights on
past, current, and future conflicts of interest in medicine for scholars and policymakers
alike Perspectives on Politics Overall this book is interesting and well done and will
likely contribute to the ongoing debate about the causes and cures of FCOIs in the United
States, Japan, and France. In the least, it makes a significant contribution to the
overall literature on the nature, extent, and consequences of FCOI in medicine today.
HUman Rights and Disability Journal
Table of Contents ;
Forward by Jerome Kassirer ; Framing the Issues ; Introduction: Patient Stories ;
1. The Heart of the Matter ; Case Studies ;
2. The Evolution of the French Medicine ;
3. Coping with Physicians' Conflicts of Interest in France ;
4. The Rise of a Protected Medical Market: The United States before 1950 ;
5. The Commercial Transformation: The United States, 1950-1980 ;
6. The Logic of Medical Markets: The United States, 1980 to the Present ;
7. Coping with Physicians' Conflicts of Interest in the United States ;
8. The Evolution of Japanese Medicine ;
9. Coping with Physicians' Conflicts of Interest in Japan ; Implications ;
10. Reforms ;
11. Professionalism Reconsidered ;
Conclusion: The Way Forward ;
Appendix: Conflicts of Interest Ideas: Origins and Application to Physicians ;
Acronyms and Glossary ;
Acknowledgements ;
About the Author ;
Bibliography ;
Index
392 pages, Paperback