Medical students and the pharmaceutical industry in France: contacts and attitudes of students in Lyon

Context. Relations between doctors and the drug industry have a known impact in the Public Health sector. In France, there is a lack of data about links between medical students and the pharmaceutical industry. Objective. To describe the frequency and type of relations between externs, interns and the pharmaceutical industry. The secondary objective is to collect students' opinions about these contacts, information provided by industry and students' university training. Method. Cross-functional descriptive study conducted between July 2011 and January 2012, by an online self-administered questionnaire, with externs (5th & 6th year, DFASM2 & 3) and interns from all specialist areas from the Faculty of Lyon. Results. Questionnaires from 101 externs (50% participation rate) and 109 interns (20% participation rate) were collected. Students' exposure to the industry comes at an early stage and is quite intense: 97% of externs and 100% of interns had had at least one discussion with a medical visitor during their time at university. Opinions were generally favourables: 62% of students are against the idea of banning such contacts. 72% believe that such meetings have no influence on their prescriptions. 71% of students feel that they are inadequately trained for interacting with the industry. Discussion. Medical students are highly exposed to marketing by drug companies but believe that they are not easily influenced. A specific training program should be implemented at the earliest possible stage in their medical training and furthermore, contacts between students and representatives from the medical industry should be discouraged.