is medicine corrupt? richard smith editor, bmj

Is medicine corrupt?Richard Smith

Editor, BMJwww.bmj.com/talks

What I want to talk about?

• What is corruption?• Evidence from medical students• Richard Horton story• The Banerjee case• Doctors and drug companies• Examples from medical publishing• Other possible areas of corruption• Why is this happening?• What might be done?

What is corruption?

• Corrupt (verb transitive): to taint, destroy the purity of, to pervert, to debase, to spoil, to bribe

• Corrupt (verb intransitive): to rot, go bad, to lose purity, spoil

What is corruption?

• Corrupt (adjective): defiled, depraved, dishonest, venal, of the nature of--or involving--bribery, bribed, not genuine or pure, rotten, putrid, debased or made very faulty in transcription

Is medicine corrupt?

Of course, everything is

corrupt to some degree

So the question is “How corrupt is

medicine?”

Evidence from studies on medical students

Are "tomorrow's doctors" honest? Questionnaire study exploring

medical students' attitudes and reported behaviour on academic

misconduct

S C Rennie and J R Crosby BMJ 2001; 322: 274-275.

676 students surveyed in Dundee471 responded (62% response rate)

Survey of 461 medical students

• Do you consider it misconduct to write “Nervous system--examination normal” when it hasn’t been done?

• Yes 75%• Have you done it?• Yes 32%


• Do you consider it misconduct to forge a doctor’s signature on a piece of work?



• Do you consider it misconduct to copy text directly without acknowledging the source?


Understanding the clinical dilemmas that shape medical students' ethical

development: questionnaire survey and focus group study

Lisa K Hicks, Yulia Lin, David W Robertson, Deborah L Robinson, and Sarah I Woodrow

BMJ 2001; 322: 709-710.

108 students in Toronto90% response rate47% had been asked to act unethically

Survey of 103 medical students in Toronto

• Conflict between medical education and patient care (17)

• Patients asked to return to clinic for follow up visits and not informed that the visits were entirely for teaching purposes

• Students asked to perform pelvic examinations on patients under general anaesthesia without patients' prior consent

• House officer instructed a student to perform a femoral puncture, for purely educational reasons, on a comatose patient who did not need the procedure


• Responsibility exceeding student's capabilities (15)

• Student completed antenatal visits with patients who were never seen by a doctor

• House officer refused to respond to student's request for help in assessing an unstable patient

• Student and house officer left by teacher to close wound, without knowing how to close it properly

• Student expected to give weekly psychotherapy sessions without supervision


• Involvement in care perceived to be substandard (9)

• Patient requested a narcotic-free vaginal delivery but given intravenous narcotics without her knowledge

• Student witnessed house officer responding inappropriately to patient's refusal to have joint aspiration; consent form completed, but consent not meaningfully given

• Student instructed by house officer to repair a child's scalp laceration with inappropriate supplies

The ethics of intimate examinations: teaching tomorrow's doctorsYvette Coldicott, Catherine Pope, Clive Roberts BMJ 2003; 326: 97-101.

452 students in Bristol386 responded (85% response rate)

Intimate examinations without consent being recollected

Y ear of study Intimateexaminations

No ofstudentsdoing them

No consentrecollected(%)

Second 32 19 34

Third 245 89 51

Fourth 1211 98 5

Total 1488 206 14

Medical students see that academic misconduct is

common

• Survey among 229 German medical students

• 97% response rate• Results are from 201 who had

completed their MD dissertation

•Eysenbach G. BMJ 2001; 322: 1307

Medical students see that academic misconduct is

common

Eysenbach G. BMJ 2001; 322: 1307

Survey among 229 German medical students97% response rateResults are from 201 who had completed their MD dissertation

Survey of 201 German medical students

• 12 “completely agreed” that “students have to deliver the results expected by the supervisor”

• 16 had been omitted from a publication despite contributing work

• 9 had been plagiarised

Survey of 201 German medical students

• 5 had taken words or ideas from others without credit

• 5 had presented results selectively

• 7 had trimmed or falsified results

Survey of 201 German medical students: observations on others

• Selective reporting 43%• Trimming or falsifying results 36%• Wrong authorship attribution 25%• Multiple publication 18%• Wilfully misleading 14%• Plagiarism 14%

Institutional corruption in medicine

Peter Wilmshurst

BMJ 2002; 325: 1232-5.

Anjan Kumar Banerjee

Banerjee’s story

• Awarded honours and distinction in his final medical exams

• Won 24 undergraduate prizes• Junior jobs at the Hammersmith and

Northwick Park• Within a few years of graduating had

49 publications and the first part of his FRCS

Banerjee’s story

• Started research with Professor Tim Peters

• 1988--doubts raised about his research: included authors on his papers who said that they had not been involved; doubts that he could have done the work

• Moved with Tim Peters to Kings

Banerjee’s story

• Received grants from charities and pharmaceutical companies for research into the effect of NSAIDs on the gut

• Colleagues said the work was fraudulent• Banerjee confessed that it was--but it had

already been printed as an abstract in Gut in 1990

• Gut was not notified until 2000 that the work was fraudulent: the retracted it

Banerjee’s story

• 1990--full paper submitted to Gut with Banerjee and Peters as sole authors

• Retracted as fraudulent 10 years later

• 1990--widespead doubts about Banerjee; Kings starts an inquiry

Banerjee’s story

• July 1991: Inquiry completed. Chairman writes to Peters and school secretary: "Having carefully examined the documentary evidence which you sent me, I am totally satisfied that much of the research data reported by Dr Banerjee since 1988 is at best unreliable, and in many cases spurious.”

Banerjee’s story

• The report disappeared• Kings didn’t notify the MRC or Gut• University of London awarded him an

MD degree based on the fraudulent research; never retracted

• Royal College of Surgeons made him a Hunterian professor based on his (fraudulent) research

Banerjee’s story

• Early 90s Banerjee became a consultant surgeon in Halifax

• 2000 resigned• November 2000--found gulity of serious

professional misconduct for falsifying research

• February 2001--Peters found guilty of serious professional misconduct for failing to act on Banerjee

Banerjee’s story

• September 2002: found guilty of serious professional misconduct for financial dishonesty: misled patients about the length of NHS waiting lists to induce patients to opt for private treatment and sought payments for treatments not performed. Concerns were also expressed about clinical skills.

Banerjee’s story

• More than 10 years elapsed between there being clear evidence of fraud and proper action being taken

• He flourished professionally despite strong evidence of misconduct

• Many were harmed by his behaviour• Many knew about his misconduct• Documents were lost• Whistleblowers were threatened