KARACHI: Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) Tuesday appreciated the recent code of conduct of the government and DRAP regarding interaction between doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

PIMA Central President Prof. Khubaib Shahid and General Secretary Prof. Muhammad Tahir Chaudhry, in a statement, have emphasized that medicine is a very sacred profession and all doctors enter this profession with the intention of serving humanity. However, some instances of inappropriate conduct including money for personal gain puts the entire medical community to humiliation. It should also be noted that health sector is not the lone sufferer in the capitalist trends of the society, and this trend is observed all over the world.

In any case, we need to keep our home clean and remind ourselves first. Moreover, undesired practices should be checked. They said that many practices have been considered to be in the grey zone, necessitating guidelines. PIMA has published physician-pharma relationship guidelines six years back and has held sessions in all of its conferences to educate doctors on the ethical aspect of the subject.

PIMA office bearers stressed that the government, law enforcement agencies and the judiciary should not give this much needed process a negative direction, and refrain from maligning the whole profession and victimization, otherwise the actual benefits targeted will be overshadowed. A policy should be designed with doctors, health administrators and pharmaceutical representatives, based on urging self-realization, improvement in procedures, removing loopholes and eliminating corruption. Also, the purification process should be adopted in other professional sectors of the society so that the whole society can benefit from the benefits.