I wrote my mini paper on the ethical challenges of the pharmaceutical industry—specifically, the issue of gifting physicians with lunches, dinners and office supplies. I used to be a drug rep so I can speak on this with some authority.

I came into the industry in 2008, so I never saw the extravagant gifts like vacation packages and tickets to Orlando Magic games. My company had done away with that in the mid-2000s due to a great deal of pressure (and scrutiny) from the general public.

I did, however, bring doctors and their staff lunches, take them out to dinners and supply them with pens, notepads, medical instruments and other drug paraphernalia. I remember the looks on the patients’ faces when I would walk into a packed waiting room bringing bags of piping hot food from Macaroni Grill. The looks I got were not very nice.

In 2009, the pHRMA organization, a pharmaceutical advocacy group, announced that they were changing their code of ethics in terms of what was appropriate in rep interactions with doctors. As a result of their updated code, several companies (including mine) got rid of the notepads, pens and many of the other office supplies that we were giving doctors. We were only allowed to give educational material (like a poster on the common causes of asthma) and lunches and dinners had a spending threshold where before it was pretty much unlimited.

Pretty much all of the big companies agreed to the new code of ethics even though it was voluntary.  I assume that Pfizer didn’t want to look bad if GlaxoSmithKline was going along with the changes. So the heavy hitters all jumped in.

Even though my company made changes in how reps interact with physicians, I don’t feel like it really helped that much. Perhaps it helped in a very small way with public perception of pharma (and that’s why I think that they all did it—for the publicity) but it did very little to influence the culture of the organization.

When a company is built on deceit and dishonesty, twisting the truth when it benefits them and encouraging employees to “tell the best story” when selling their products it will not turn into a morally upright company simply because the leaders have decided to stop giving notepads to doctors. Despite the change of several big pharmaceutical companies to adopt the practices of the pHRMA code, there is absolutely no shortage of drug industry scandals, off label promotions and FDA sanctions for misconduct.

The pharma industry was one of the most corrupt and backward industries I have ever worked for. However, I do consider it an extremely valuable experience in terms of my development as a leader and as an individual and I would never take it back. I gained clarity in what I stand for and believe in and I learned that company culture is extremely important. Leaders have to BE what they want to see in people instead of offering lip service and industry buzzwords to create the “feeling” (not a reality) of being an outstanding company.

I truly believe that good ethics in a company starts with great leaders, which is why I’m really glad that I’m taking this course and learning how to develop myself in this area.