CHICAGO-Under intense and growing scrutiny of relationships between industry and physicians, academic health centers, medical professional organizations, and physician practices are grappling with how to guide physicians in their dealings with industry. For a specialty such as otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, which is heavily dependent on medical devices, this issue is particularly important to address.
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January 2009As we are a device-dependent specialty, the onus is especially on us as leaders in medicine to make sure we regulate our own house, said Udayan K. Shah, MD, Chair of the Medical Devices and Drugs Committee of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) and a pediatric otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon at Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children and Nemours Children’s Clinic-Wilmington in Delaware.
Speaking at a miniseminar on this topic at the recent AAO-HNS annual meeting, Dr. Shah emphasized the importance of physicians and institutions taking a proactive approach to compliance to protect physicians against liability issues, as well as to ensure their legitimate rights to compensation for services rendered.