Sales Representatives in the Operating Room: Conflict of Interest or Clinical Support?

Abstract

Background: The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which became federal law in January 2012, mandated that medical device manufacturers must disclose any financial support provided to individual physicians on a publicly available Web site. The law reflects increasing concern about physician-industry relationships.

Methods: The connection between surgeon and sales representative creates possibilities for both financial and non-financial conflicts of interest (COIs). Indeed, COIs may be inherent when a sales representative is motivated by profit while also serving a critical role in many surgeries.

Results: The potential benefits and risks for patients, who may not even be aware of the sales representative's presence in the operating room, must be considered.

Conclusions: This paper adds to the national discussion about neurosurgical physician-industry conflicts of interests and the issues relative to sales representatives in the operating room.

Keywords: Conflict of interest; Device reps; Sales representative.