Diary of a Neighborhood Pharmacist, Entry #27

In those days, I was upper lower middle management – not very important within the organization, but I had a seat on the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee (also known as the Formulary Committee), so I was targeted by the drug sales reps for special attention. I never got the really good stuff, but I can say that I didn't do badly. I had a few meals at restaurants that I would never have considered on my own budget, and managed a couple of trips, albeit in coach.

A number of people I knew did a lot better; others got upset because they didn't score as highly as they felt was right and proper. One MD was mad at a drug company for inviting him to a seminar in Palm Springs, Florida, when he wanted to go to Palm Springs, California. Another refused to let a drug go on formulary, because the company had organized a junket to Switzerland, and hadn't invited him. The pharmacy director at a city hospital had a regular table at an expense account restaurant, and every day a different drug company would pay for his lunch – his reason being that he wanted a demonstration of the fact that they cared as much for the city system as they did for the better known voluntary hospitals. A different pharmacy director received a package in the mail, containing a manuscript, instructions for submitting it to a journal under his own name, and a promise of $1,000 on publication. When I raised my eyebrows, he said it was all right, because he had checked the references and agreed with what had been written. Each year, one company took a large group of us, with our spouses, to dinner and a Broadway show. It was a tradition that ended only when one of their representatives spent so much money on the urologists that there wasn't enough cash left to feed the pharmacists, but it was nice while it lasted.

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