For many doctors, marketing lectures are also a welcome diversion.
The meeting, the invitation said, was to give doctors "marketing data" on Celexa, an antidepressant, update doctors on the latest clinical trials and get their advice on treating depression.
Consumers pay cash up front for cosmetic procedures and, because the treatments are medically unnecessary, they are typically not covered by insurance, which explains why doctors' marketing efforts can resemble a department store white sale.
"In this day and age, doctors market," Dr. Newman said.
Shortly before the dreadful crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, I happened to be reading part of "The Second Machine Age," a book by two academics at M.I.T., Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, about the coming automation of many professions previously thought of as impervious to technological change, such as those of drivers, doctors, market researchers, and soldiers.
Sampling, patient requests resulting from DTCA, and other direct-to-doctor marketing also influenced new drug uptake positively—however, their impact was rather modest.
Fertility centers often use some of the same strategies as large drug companies, with dinners, seminars and gifts for referring doctors, and marketing representatives who show up regularly at the referring doctors' doors.
One thing that transcends class lines is the phenomenon of packaging, with students shrewdly massaging their résumés and counselors, playing the role of political spin doctors, relentlessly marketing them.
"There comes a point when you are putting too much time and money into your vanity," said Peri Basel, a practice consultant in Chappaqua, N.Y., who advises cosmetic doctors on marketing strategies.
The Advertising Standards Authority has been examining concerns, particularly among public health doctors, that marketing encourages non-smokers and particularly children to try them, and that they will graduate to ordinary cigarettes.
Centocor, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has been providing doctors with marketing materials that describe how they can make extra money by prescribing a new drug, a practice that health care fraud experts say may be illegal.
