Responses of medical schools to institutional conflicts of interest.

Context: Institutional financial conflicts of interest may affect research results. No national data exist on the extent to which US medical schools have formally responded to challenges associated with institutional conflicts of interest (ICOI).

Objective: To assess the current state of ICOI policies and practices in US medical schools using the recommendations issued by 2 national higher education and research organizations as the standard.

Institutional academic industry relationships.

Context: Institutional academic-industry relationships have the potential of creating institutional conflicts of interest. To date there are no empirical data to support the establishment and evaluation of institutional policies and practices related to managing these relationships.

Objective: To conduct a national survey of department chairs about the nature, extent, and consequences of institutional-academic industry relationships for medical schools and teaching hospitals.