By DUFF WILSON

Published: February 22, 2010

More than half of the nation’s medical residency programs to train doctors in internal medicine accepted financial support from the drug industry, even though three-fourths of the programs’ directors said accepting the aid was “not desirable,” a survey found.

At issue are potential conflicts of interest as the residency programs accept drug company support to help train tens of thousands of new doctors at a point in their careers when they are beginning to prescribe drugs, according to the survey report.

The article was published Monday in the Web version of The Archives of Internal Medicine. “Program directors are aware of the problem, but right now they don’t have the funds to be free,” Dr. Joanne M. Conroy, chief health care officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, who was not involved in the survey, but had seen the report. (more…)