Pfizer Sales Reps Discuss Having Sex With Doctors
Sales reps at Pfizer are using a CafePharma bulletin board to discuss whether it is common for their colleagues to sleep with the doctors whom they are trying to persuade to write prescriptions.
Surprisingly for CafePharma -- which has a reputation for being juvenile, offensive and misogynist -- the debate is relatively level-headed and tame. Most commenters seem to agree that sex with doctors is going on more inside people's heads than in reality. The debate started with this question:
Physician's wife here. Just how prevalent is it? I hear that it happens but does it happen often? Just wondered.The most common type of answer:
Lots and lots of talk and wishful thinking, but it happens rarely.Another noted that while there's plenty of flirting, there's not a lot of consumating:
Rep here. Unfortunately we get hit on all the time by men like your husband.The most famous Pfizer rep to describe a doctor-sex story is Jamie Reidy, formerly the self-proclaimed No. 1 Viagra salesman in the U.S. (Reidy was later fired as a sales trainer from Eli Lilly when his book, "Hard Sell," was published. The book detailed his unethical sales tactics while at Pfizer and is currently being made into a movie, Love and Other Drugs, starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhall.)
In the book, Reidy (pictured) describes a female doctor with whom he has drinks in a bar. He fends off her drunken advances, and she passes out and ends up sleeping on his sofa.
On CafePharma, fending off amorous doctors is something of a theme:
They come to dinner programs with a goal in mind that has nothing to do with medicine. Others simply take any kindness by a pretty girl as a come-on and a signal for sex, when nothing could be further from the truth. Shame but true.Still, it's hard to know whether to take this post seriously or not:
I have had sex with six married doctors in my career.Certainly, this one should not be:
I was at a dinner program the other night and as the lecture ended the rep had sex with 4 of the physicians. I found this very disturbing and disapointing (primarily because I was not one of the four physicians selected).
- Previously:
- July's Top 10 Weirdest Drug Stories
- What Docs Didn't Know About Pfizer's Neurontin
- Wyeth Q2: Ah! So That's Why Pfizer's Buying This Company
- Pfizer Q2: All But 3 Drugs in Decline; R&D Spend Lowest Since 2007
- Did Pfizer Violate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Philippine "Bribe" Flap?
- Pfizer Exec Gets 6 Months' Home Confinement for Off-Label Bextra Sales
- Pfizer Will Fall Under Philippines Price Control; Company Ads Deny "Bribe" Attempt
- "Bribe" or No, Pfizer May Get Its Way in Philippines
- Pfizer "Bribe" Scandal in Philippines Heats Up; Company Offered Posters to the President
- UPDATED: Pfizer Accused of "Bribe" to Stave Off Price Control Law in Philippines
- Pfizer Catches Flak for Giving Drug Discounts to Some But Not All Filipinos
- Pfizer to Close S.F. Biotech Center in Favor of Unit Accused in Patent Suit
- Pfizer Patent Suit Could Make Elan Bapineuzamab Talks Go a Whole Lot Easier
- Pfizer's Foreign Viagra Ads: Mailman Jokes; Space Sperm and the Fountain of Youth