Have you ever been hospitalized for major surgery and wondered about the team in the room operating on you?

If you are not a healthcare worker, you may not realize that often that team in the operating room includes a medical sales rep that helps guide the doctor through the procedure.

A recent article in The Washington Post offers insight into this close relationship between some physicians and medical sales reps:

Although patients may not be aware of their presence, sales representatives have become fixtures in operating rooms across America. They come bearing artificial hips and artificial knees, cardiac pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, spinal stabilizers and mesh used to support prolapsed bladders. They deliver screws to hold bones together, and protein substances meant to make bone grow again.

The article explains that, “in an age of rapidly proliferating technologies, the salesmen may know more about their products than the doctors who use them do.”

One industry insider points out that many medical devices could not be used safely without help from medical sales representatives in the operating room explaining how the device is to be implanted correctly.

But is it all about safety or is it about selling a device into a hospital? It may be both.

As one sales representative admits, “if you have a good relationship with a surgeon and you can convince the surgeon to use your product, that surgeon can then convince the hospital to use your product.”

Is this a good practice or a conflict of interest? Let us know what you think.

Post your comments below and begin the conversation.

This blog appeared at Action for Better Healthcare.