On a brisk, cold evening I boarded an overnight plane from my hometown to Cincinnati.\u00a0 Once I landed, a gentleman dressed in a black suit with a grin over his face was waiting for me at the airport to drive me to my hotel.\u00a0 The driver led me through green untouched pastures and over a river and through bustling neighborhoods.\u00a0 I asked to be dropped off at the hotel prior to going to the classroom and the driver reluctantly accepted noting that I might be late for the lectures.<\/p>\n
Some weeks prior, TheCompany Inc. <\/em>(the names in this post have been modified) had offered me an educational course on atrial fibrillation which I agreed to attend.\u00a0 The driver dropped me off on TheCompany\u2019s perfectly manicured grounds adjacent to a nondescript building.\u00a0 There, I entered a classroom designed specifically for educating physicians.\u00a0 Our first speaker was Ajay, who has made significant contributions to the field of atrial fibrillation.\u00a0 He reviewed slides on anatomy, physiology, and ablation strategies pertaining to atrial fibrillation.\u00a0 He spoke to a group of fellows and community electrophysiologists in the middle of the classroom as black suited representatives from TheCompany sat on either side.<\/p>\n The message was clear: atrial fibrillation is a problem and ablation is a necessary evil.\u00a0 When Ajay was lost for words, he made a quick furtive glance at the black suited representatives, who provided clarification.\u00a0 It was clear the slides he and the other speakers were presenting were written by TheCompany and the message was orchestrated carefully.\u00a0 After several hours of lectures, we filed into a laboratory filled with TheCompany\u2019s devices and tools.\u00a0 We spent many hours working with TheCompany’s ablation catheters and software with Ajay and TheCompany\u2019s representatives by our side.\u00a0 They were all eager to show us how to use their tools clinically.<\/p>\n After two days of listening to Ajay, other prominent electrophysiologists, and TheCompany representatives, I was ready to go back to my hometown.\u00a0\u00a0 On my car ride back, I was reflective.\u00a0 I was asked to participate in an educational event that was designed in part to showcase TheCompany\u2019s products and in part to educate physicians.\u00a0 What is the role of industry in educating physicians on the clinical use of their technology?\u00a0 As an academic physician, where do you draw the line between your message and one of industry\u2019s?\u00a0 As a participant how do you separate marketing from medicine?\u00a0 Watching the rolling hills of Cincinnati go by from my car, I felt a little disenchanted but confess that I was eager to use what I had learned over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a brisk, cold evening I boarded an overnight plane from my hometown to Cincinnati.\u00a0 Once I landed, a gentleman dressed in a black suit with a grin over his face was waiting for me at the airport to drive me to my hotel.\u00a0 The driver led me through green untouched pastures and over a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[201,479,478],"class_list":["post-3893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electrophysiology","category-general","tag-conflict-of-interest","tag-technology","tag-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}