Grant: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Pharmaceutical industry involvement in medical education is pervasive in North America and most institutions have recently adopted conflict of interest policies pertinent to medical education. The effect of misinformation on physician prescribing behaviour or patient care are not known. A rare occurrence at a particular Ontario medical school has created a unique opportunity to study the impact of misinformation in industry sponsored medical school lectures on physician prescribing. The prescriptions of opioid pain medications written by graduates of the medical school affected by pertinent misinformation will be compared with those from other medical schools. This project will help to elucidate how information is translated into practice while promoting safe prescribing of these medications. Prescriptions of opioid pain medications have increased dramatically during the last decades in proportion to opioid related deaths. Government and regulatory bodies are currently trying to reduce opioid related harms and this project will help focus those efforts.