Listening to doctors and patients talk

Physicians get paid for participating...record your conversations for medical research...nine large pharmaceutical companies participating...more marketing information for the drug companies? With information gathered, the patient and the physician are not identified, just the conversations..and transcripts are prepared...and SOLD...BD

When Zaccary Newsham-Quinn, 4, visits his pediatrician in Levittown, the doctor, Nathan Zankman, asks if he would be willing to have their conversation recorded for use in medical research.
Zaccary's mother, Danielle, agrees, and signs a consent form, and the doctor turns on a small digital recorder that captures every word between the physician and patient behind the examining-room door.
Later, Zankman sends the recording via computer, along with others he made that day, to a Fort Washington start-up technology company, Verilogue Inc.
Verilogue has software that analyzes the real-time patient-physician interactions, compiles a verbatim transcript, and puts the recording and transcript in a database that Verilogue clients in the health-care industry will use to learn what doctors and patients actually say to each other about diseases and medicines. To attract physicians, the company sent e-mails and faxes, targeting specialty doctors, such as oncologists and psychiatrists who are paid for their time. The company said the fee is similar to stipends paid to medical investigators in other clinical research.