I sold a piece of my soul, but the wine sure was good

I finally went to my first drug company dinner last week. I really just wanted to get a free dinner at a yummy-sounding restaurant in town, as I always feel pretty guilty taking anything from drug reps (normally I don't even take pens or anything, just on principle). But the prospect of a free dinner got the better of me, and I justified it to my conscience by saying that they're selling a drug I'm never going to prescribe (it's for osteoporosis...and EM people don't really treat that chronically), and I could write about it here to sort of make up for it. (right??) It was pretty interesting, and overall pretty bizarre. The main speaker was (I think) an endocrinologist, and she told some made-up story about how her own mother was thrilled to learn about this new osteoporosis drug (which obviously I'm not naming here...I'm not doing free name-advertising for them). The whole thing made me pretty uncomfortable, what with the knowledge that drug companies spend almost 30 billion dollars (I can't even get my brain around that) a year on advertising, most of it directly to doctors (i.e. not direct-to-consumer advertising like on TV). And rising drug costs are at least partly responsible for the rising cost of health care and insurance, leading to fewer insured people, etc etc etc. But I digress. I enjoyed the dinner (it was actually pretty yummy, and had lots of free-flowing wine), but with every bite I could taste a little bit of guilt. It sucks that a for-profit industry is so entrenched in (and in a big way driving) what should be an essentially non-profit, for-the-greater-good industry and profession. If sales tactics didn't result in increased use and prescription of drugs, companies wouldn't take entire offices out to dinner or give stethoscope tags or free pens. The office where I had outpatient medicine had free lunch every single day sponsored by drug reps. One day I walked into the kitchen and the rep was holding up a big brochure and describing the effects of her new lipid-lowering medication, while trays of (literally, I am not making this up) KFC fried chicken and mac and cheese sat on the table. I guess she was trying to create future customers?? I'm going to stop here, before thoughts of the current state of health care in this country cause me to become apoplectic in public. I hope everyone is doing well!!