M. G. R. BEYAERT ET AL.
Medicine to learn from the experiences of other schools in the
development and implementation of their COI policies. Addi-
tionally, several excellent suggestions have been provided in
the literature. Notably, Smith and Williams-Jones made exem-
plary recommendations for the development of COI policies in
Canada (Smith & Williams-Jones, 2009).
Our goal is that a similar system to the AMSA PharmFree
Scorecard will be put in place in Canada to grade medical
school COI policies and track the progress in a continuous lon-
gitudinal initiative. AMSA has achieved great success with
their initiative in the US, as the overall quality of medical
school COI policies has improved every year since the introdu-
ction of their scoring system (AMSA, 2012). We believe simi-
lar success can be achieved in Canada. We propose that this
could be done by some of the organizations in the National COI
group such as CFMS, a Canadia n organization similar to AMSA,
in collaboration with academic CME/CPD offices in Canada.
In conclusion there are important lessons learnt from this
early study, that is sharing of experiences in implementing
these policies through education in Canadian medical schools
would be beneficial through a national COI group. There is
ongoing need to identify appropriate management of COI’s and
bias through educational strategies in all academic institutions.
Academic health sciences centers should ensure that any and all
partnerships between themselves and industry serve the best
interest of patients. Using information gleaned from this study
for longitudinal evaluation and continuous quality improvement
in education is the vital next step.
Acknowledgements
The authors are pleased to acknowledge the assistance of
Larissa Husarewy c h in the submission of this manuscript.
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