Michael N. Needle, MD

It is appropriate that academic physicians who work with for-profit entities are under scrutiny for having potential conflicts of interest. I would like to broaden the focus to include the conflicts that physicians face who work wholly in industry or wholly in academics.

I recently returned to academic practice after a 12-year hiatus working in the pharmaceutical industry. I found much has changed.

In about 8 weeks, I am going to return to academic practice. I’m 50 years old and a pediatric oncologist. I left The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia at the end of 1997 to start a new career in the pharmaceutical industry. Twelve years later, I’m returning: this time to the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center.