The headline in Medical Marketing & Media Online: Physicians and medical institutions should shun gifts, reps, samples and ghostwriting, said the Institute of Medicine’s conflict of interest committee in its full recommendations. (see for yourself).
Shun?? Really? OK, mugs, pens and useless crap – I get it, there is no medical value there. Ghostwriting? Well hell, hiring someone to do something you aren’t at good at gets done all the time (like my house cleaning lady) – although somehow it seems a bit sneaky. But when did reps and samples get put in the same basket with the tchotchkes?
Doctors aren’t great at pharmacology – it’s the Achilles’ heel for a lot of health care professionals. Drug reps KNOW their product – the job requires you to be able to impart that expert information and provide samples so the doctor can gain experience with the drug and provide help to his or her patients. There ARE too many reps right now – we need to go back to doing what we do best – provide extremely knowledgeable people to provide the most up-to-date information on a particular drug, provide samples and then let the doctor do what they do best – diagnose and treat the patient.
Shunning doesn’t help anyone. Sorry IOM, you made a poor recommendation.
Read an interesting article in the dining section of the NY Times yesterday entitled “His Big Idea is to Get Small“. Randall Grahm, owner of the Bonny Doon Vineyards is examining his business model and asking a key question: “How do you create the conditions for originality?” It is the question every small business should be asking these days. Further, Mr. Grahm recommends “following one’s own muse” in order to figure out the business model that will lead to satisfaction and ultimately a unique offering.
As our company continues to grow, we are mindful that we want to maintain our originality, and continue to focus our efforts on following the path that has brought us success, while continuing to search for new and different ways to approach business. I love to see a guy who has been running a wildly successful company have the guts to take the risks he has – my bet is he’ll be more successful than ever.
Nobody loves breaking rules more than I do. I come from an Air Force family – we made hospital corners on our beds, scrubbed the floors with ammonia, and addressed my father as “Sir” (no wonder all the kids in my family are entrepreneurs).  I wholeheartedly prescribe to the idea of being different; Seth Godin writes about being a “Purple Cow” and making the choice: be remarkable or be invisible.
Being a rule breaker is not without risks – you have to learn to ignore the desperate pleas of your family to “get a real job” as you doggedly pursue your vision and hope to hell you are doing the right thing and that your vision is actually something that will eventually make money.
I read a blog posting by a guy named Steve Spark, “5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded“ and it got me thinking about rule breaking in general and it’s truly only the people that go against the grain that really make it – having a niche that is different is great, but it does actually have to be something useful, helpful or in some way pushes the peanut forward. Different just for the hell of it isn’t really useful to anyone, but maybe it will get you going to the right path.
