Medicine is a business

In my opinion, medicine is always a service, a health care service.
But, nowadays, the drug dealers have made medicine into a business, a potential profitable business. Why would i say so? It was because the drug dealers are so creative in promoting and advertising their company, and also their products. Their would distribute some free gifts that have their company or drug name printed on those items.
Now, i would like to take this opportunity to introduce you the free gifts. Then you would know how creative they are.

1) PEN, the most common fee gift given out by the drug companies. All doctors and nurses need to use pen everyday for writing and recording. So this is the easiest way to promote their products as other health care workers would know when their colleagues are using it.

Types & examples of pen:


(A)the pen is not a normal pen, it is a "bi-cranial" pen as it has two heads. One head functions as ball pen the other head functions as highlight pen. Very smart la, the designer... But blue high lighter is not a very good choice....

(B) this is a yellow high lighter but then the design of the cap is very special. It is a hooked cap. The blue thingy on the cap can be opened and you can hook the pen on your stethoscope.

(C) I know u have heard of 2 in 1 shampoo, but have u seen a 2in 1 pen? The pic shows an orange highlight pen with a space that keeps mini sticky index pads at the end of the pen. Can you see the strip of orange paper? That's the mini sticky... Super creative lei....

2) Sticky note pads- the second most common free gifts. Other than pens, these sticky note pads are widely used in the hospital especially when one needs to leave a message to his colleague on the patient's documents.

3) Can you figure out what is this? It is called a clip dispenser. The white thingy on top are the clips. The transparent holder with blue button is the dispenser. I would never thought that a drug company would spend money to make a clip dispenser as free gift. It doesnt look cheap to me...

4) Last, but not least, in such advanced country, there is no doubt that their free gift would be more high tech.... Look, i got a 1GB pen drive here. Haha. It came with the beautiful box... I think this is the most precious gift i have ever got from the drug company.

I got all these items when i attended the seminar or talk or meeting held in the hospital. the organizer would normally invite one or few drug companies to come and promote their product. they are not only competing in the sales of the drugs but also the creativity in making free gifts. I am impressed with their creativity... Salute...