The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) will be releasing its fifth PharmFree Scorecard on Thursday, March 8. The PharmFree Scorecard measures how well academic medical institutions are doing at providing an educational (not promotional) environment in which medical students receive their education, by instituting policies to manage potential conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry.

The PharmFree Scorecard evaluates all 152 allopathic and osteopathic medical colleges in the United States and Puerto Rico. It measures 11 metrics, including curriculum, pharmaceutical sales rep access to students, and four metrics on gifts and industry relationships.

PostScript has been covering the Scorecard for four years now, and we are excited to analyze the latest results when they come out on Thursday. To get ready, we took a trip down memory lane:

  • In 2008, only 7 schools received an A, and 14 received a B (out of 150 schools). 60 schools received an F.
  • In 2009, 45 institutions received an A or B, and one-fifth of the schools improved their policies over the year before.
  • In 2010, 78 schools received an A or B, representing one half of all medical schools. 19 schools were still receiving Fs, but that means 41 fewer failing schools than just two years prior.
We hope the race to the top continues!

The updated scorecard will be posted on Thursday at http://www.amsascorecard.org/.  If you’d like to be among the first to hear the results, you are welcome to join the press conference at 11am EST (8am PST) on Thursday:

Toll Free Access Number:  (559) 726-1000 Participant Passcode:  161471#

Location:   Hyatt Regency Houston 1200 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas Press must check in at AMSA registration desk

— Anna Dunbar-Hester, Policy Analyst

This blog post was made possible by a grant from the state Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program which is funded by the multi-state settlement of consumer fraud claims regarding the marketing of the prescription drug Neurontin.