Continuing medical education and pharmaceutical industry

Continuing medical education providers' (academia) and industrial relationship is drawing attention all over the world. To date, there are no national commercial support guidelines available in Pakistan to properly regulate cooperation between the two distinct entities. However, the fact is that the future of all continuing medical education depends on pharmaceutical support and the providers are heavily dependent on the pharmaceutical industry to remain in action. It should always be remembered that medical education and profession is regarded as a moral of enterprise based on a blind faith between the physician and the patient. The funding support by the industry should not bind or influence physician's prescription for any reason. To be trusted, medicine must be free of all such dependency; it should be accountable only to the society it serves and to its own professional standards.