Just as the legal profession requires Continuing Legal Education (CLE) for all practitioners, the medical field similarly requires physicians to update and enhance their skills through participation in Continuing Medical Education (CME). Yet whereas it is difficult to conceive of a situation in which legal professionals could face criminal charges arising out of their participation in CLE, the situation is vastly different in the medical field, and the difference arises from the extent to which pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers sponsor CME as part of their marketing efforts. In fact, recent testimony before the United States Senate underscores the significant degree of skepticism within federal law enforcement towards corporate-sponsored CME, the government’s view that CME is often a thinly veiled effort to market products and funnel money to doctors, and the considerable risk that criminal exposure can result.
Public Hearing
On July 29, 2009, the Senate Special Committee on Aging conducted a public hearing revealingly titled “Medical Research and Education: Higher Learning or Higher Earning?”1 The hearing included testimony and the submission of written statements from, among others, the organization that oversees most CME accreditation in the United States, the pharmaceutical company Merck, trade associations representing both the medical device industry and the drug industry, and various physicians and academics who are either critical of or supportive towards industry funding of CME. Perhaps most notable at the hearing, however, was the testimony and written submission of Lewis Morris, who is Chief Counsel to the Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG) and thus is intimately involved in and familiar with the enforcement of criminal statutes in health care-related cases. 2
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