Stanford University School of Medicine decouples pharmaceutical industry funding from CME programs, becoming the sixth major medical school to do so. shill (slang) n. One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle. v. tr. 1. To act as a shill for (a deceitful enterprise). 2. To lure (a person) into a swindle. (Updated 21-October 2008) "Current self-regulation will not satisfactorily protect the interests of patients. More stringent regulation is necessary, including the elimination or modification of common practices related to ... continuing medical education, funds for physician travel, speakers bureaus, ghostwriting, and consulting and research contracts." Brennan TA, Rothman DJ, Blumenthal D et al. "Health industry practices that create conflicts of interest: A proposal for reform." JAMA 2006;295:429-433. ### "By the mid-1990s many American physicians had grown frustrated with the financial limitations imposed on them by the HMOs. Watching their salaries stall, [they] were easily seduced by the welcoming arms of the drug industry, where the money still flowed." - Melody Petersen, "Our Daily Meds," p 25 "I don't have a problem with doctors making $3,000 or $5,000 a year on the side, but it's a totally different thing when they're making $80,000." Even more distasteful is that the slides used in many of these presentations are created by the drug makers--not the speakers. "That's like ghost-talking." - Dr. Robert J. Alpern Dean, Yale School of Medicine (If you were bringing in an additional $50,000-$100,000 a year with very little effort, shuttling about rich countries extoling the merits of lifelong polypharmacy to clinicians less clever, less compeling than yourself -- loads of fancy dinners & hotels, business class travel, furtive financial exchanges, would you stray from the script?) (see also, 4/18 NPR feature: "Trained Monkey On the Take")