Friday, January 2, 2009

Bye bye to drug rep toys :(

First off...NO, I have not stopped blogging forever, I have just given it a rest while I enjoyed my winter holidays vacation. As 5th semester is about to start up, the blogging will start up, as well. As long as I continue to have visitors, I will continue to blog. Maybe my New Year's resolution will be to blog more often from now on. I used to be very good at blogging every day, but got pretty behind at times last semester.

Anyway, starting yesterday, the pharmaceutical companies have agreed to stop handing out all of their free little toys, which I think is a real shame. If you want to get a great idea of all the neat things they handed out, I'd recommend you visit drugreptoys.blogspot.com. Among the freebies were the usual tons and tons of pens and prescription pads, but also EKG calipers, Mag Light flashlights, pen lights, reflex hammers, first aid kits, reference books, mouse pads, and even USB flash drives!

I think it's just awful that these things are going away before I even make it to clinicals! The biggest argument against them is that people think that physicians were letting their drug choices be influenced by the swag. I'd really hope that physicians had a little more sense than to prescribe based on what pen they were currently using, but maybe some didn't. Fortunately, the free dinners and lunches will not stop, although that's probably only a matter of time too. RIP, drug rep pens.

1 comment:

Trixie the Pixie said...

My absurd goal this year is to try and post everyday. So far, I've made it three days... I suspect this will change when I get to my surgery rotation, but it's a good break from the studying!

I'm also sad about the lack of drug rep paraphernalia... Not only did I acquire a plethora of pens (one of them LIGHTS UP when you click it, in this cool purple color!) during my IM rotation, but I also received a reflex hammer, a penlight, and two pocket books, one of the management of asthma and the other... A manual of antimicrobials and all the different uses for them! (AMAZING)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed your break and good luck with 5th semester... it'll be over before you know it, and you'll be waving goodbye to SXM for the last time!