Michelle Mello — Peering into "Private Time": Medical Schools' Oversight of Faculty Consulting Contracts

The October 2, 2013, Lab seminar was presented by Michelle Mello, an Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow and Professor of Law and Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Titled, "Peering into 'Private Time': Medical Schools' Oversight of Faculty Consulting Contracts," Mello's presentation provided a comprehensive overview of her research on policies and practices adopted by medical schools toward their faculty's use of outside time to engage in consulting relationships, especially with pharmaceutical companies. Discussion throughout the presentation touched on participants' own stories of conflicting contractual obligations between their research and potential consulting relationships, as well as debate over the feasibility of regulating and standardizing policies around such use of outside time for consulting.

By analyzing the often conflicting legal contracts that faculty members sign with their university and with the companies they consult for, Mello's research focuses on not only situations in which faculty may be biased due to conflicts of interest, but where they are actually legally torn between obligations to academia and industry. Through a survey of medical school policies and infrastructure to oversee faculty consulting relationships and interviews of administrators reviewing consulting agreements, she collected data on what was perceived internally as ethically acceptable, general opinions about faculty consulting, as well as the desirability and feasibility of stronger oversight. Participants, however, questioned whether increased oversight would make schools less competitive employers by limiting the types of additional jobs faculty could take on the side or increasing the bureaucratic red tape for getting such activities approved. Others commented on the desirability of disclosure in the media when faculty are asked to comment on issues related to their work since full disclosure might discount the impact of their knowledge.

Ultimately, participants turned to the normative question of what researchers' core values should be in representing their work to the community. In summary, the participants of the seminar considered how to balance normative concerns about academic transparency to the public and the practical implications of mandatory disclosure and regulation of faculty consulting.

-Summary composed by Ivy Yan