A new web-based Continuing Medical Education (CME) initiative by the Federation of State Medical Boards Foundation is seeking to educate physicians on various aspects of the relationship between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry.
Though the development and use of prescription medications is a critical part of medical practice in the United States, the level of awareness and understanding of drug industry practices - ranging from the development of new compounds to their marketing - varies and is not as high as it should be among physicians. That's part of the driving force behind the FSMB Foundation's Online Prescriber Education Network (OPEN), which is offering physicians free CME credit to become better educated about prescribing and the impact of drug industry practices on medical practice.
OPEN provides approximately 50 multimedia, interactive CME courses about various aspects of the drug industry through its portal, which can be accessed at the FSMB website (www.fsmb.org/foundation.html). Nearly all of the courses are free. Just a sampling of the content at the portal includes:
•Drug industry marketing practices and their effect on prescribing
•Understanding the drug approval process
•General best practices in prescribing
•The use of generics vs. name-brand drugs
•How to use evidence-based medicine in prescribing
•Understanding adverse drug events and how they are reported
These and many other CME topics are available for CME credit offered in partnership with such organizations as Wake Forest University, the Kaiser Foundation, University of Illinois, and others.
"We are trying to create one place where physicians can go to get a variety of information about the prescribing process and the drug industry," said FSMB Foundation President Nancy Achin Audesse. "This is critical to our long-term mission of ensuring that physicians practice at a peak level of professionalism."