On Thursday night a couple of us went to a dinner sponsored by the Rheumatology department. It was basically a night to introduce medical students to the field of rheumatology. There were some talks by the rheumatologists and residents in the program and by the end of the night I think a lot of us were pretty pleasantly surprised by what we heard. Rheumatology seems to involve a lot of interesting cases, patients and a great lifestyle. Love House? Then Rheumatology is for you (lupus anyone? vasculitis? how about sarcoidosis??). So it was an informative night, and a lot of people I think are now seriously considering going into rheum.
The only thing that sort of bugged me about this whole thing was the fact the night was paid for by a drug company. It was on my mind the whole night. I mean, what was their ulterior motive? I saw one lady from the company talking earnestly with a couple of my classmates, and wondered what were they discussing?
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I felt sort of strange and sheepish about the whole situation. Almost like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman minus Richard Gere, and lemony cheesecake goodness in the place of money and clothes (mmm…cheesecake)…And what’s worse, there were no free pens or post-its!! (joking, but those would have been nice, haha).
I know this is the nature of the beast but I just hope that these sorts of things don’t sway or influence my judgment in the future. I would not want it to compromise my patients’ care, just because I got some fancy chicken for dinner. I don’t know…how do others feel about this?
Well it's good that you took it with a grain of salt, seems a bit like they're hounding you 1st year Meds. But eh, the fact that it bugged you meant you weren't totally gullible to everything, Stuff's already thinking ahead for her patients ^_^, so don't be too worried about it.
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