Their job is to market their company's drugs and persuade physicians to prescribe them. Their ranks are growing rapidly. Their presence is helpful to many doctors, increasingly irksome to others. Pa. The growing number of drug reps is part of the industry's increased emphasis on marketing. Physicians, however, have varied and strong opinions about visits from the swelling ranks of pharmaceutical representatives.
Some physicians welcome visits from drug reps.
Others are torn between their interest in hearing about new drugs that may help their patients and their concern that the reps promote expensive new drugs that don't offer any real advantage over cheaper, older ones. Still other physicians have decided to simply shut the door on pharmaceutical representatives altogether and rely solely on medical journals, the Internet and pharmacists for drug information. Doctors who welcome drug reps into their offices say that meeting with them is a quick way to learn about both new and existing drugs. Alecia Hathaway, MD, an internist in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Tarrant County Public Health Service's medical director, also enjoys meeting with drug reps. They are an especially good source of information on new drugs for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, she said.