LaCross, Wis., docs tighten ethics rules

Area medical staff change how they do business with drug companies. While CME is still allowed,

The bottom line: Try to avoid accepting any gift.





"We're not going to be pen and coffee cup police, but not accepting gifts is a good policy," said Dr. P. Stephen Shultz, Franciscan Skemp medical director and chairman of the system's ethics committee that developed its gifts and gratuities policy.


"Doctors say the gifts didn't influence their decisions or change their minds," said Shultz, "but it didn't look good and who knows if it really did change their minds?"