As neurotechnology becomes increasingly central to modern patient care, physicians often navigate industry partnerships with little formal guidance on where collaboration ends and undue influence on treatment decisions begins.
A new study from the Bioethics Research Center at WashU Medicine, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience and led by Tristan McIntosh, PhD, an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine, investigated physicians’ perspectives on these relationships and their influence on clinical practice.
The paper, “How Physician Relationships with Neurotechnology Companies Impact Clinical Practice: Interviews with Physicians,” draws on in-depth interviews with physicians to reveal the specific factors—both helpful and harmful—that shape clinical decision-making when working with neurotechnology device companies.
These factors range from marketing tactics and sales pressure to customer support quality and device discontinuation.
“This work fills a critical gap in the literature,” McIntosh said. “While physician-industry relationships have been widely studied in pharmaceuticals, far less is known about how these dynamics play out in the fast-evolving neurotechnology space, where device complexity and long-term patient dependence raise unique ethical stakes.”
“For bioethicists, health policy researchers, hospital administrators, and physicians alike, this study offers actionable insights into balancing neurotechnological innovation and physician-industry relationships with patient welfare.”