Gender Preferences of Physicians

Early studies of the relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical sales representatives demonstrated that physicians were interested in and influenced by these sales representatives due to the information and educational support they received from them. However, physicians did not view the pharmaceutical sales representative as an important part of their practice. Physicians were impressed by the amount of patients that came to the sales representative and the selling techniques that they used to solicit these patients (Andaleeb & Tallman, 1995; 1996).

More recent studies of the relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical sales representatives focused on the link between physician ratings, customer satisfaction, and profitable customer relationships (Scharitzer & Kollarits, 2000). When customers are satisfied, both the physician and the pharmaceutical company benefit. Service quality became linked to economic success criteria. Efforts to increase customer satisfaction and profits resulted in related research. In a study of 190 general practitioners from multiple districts, participants were surveyed regarding satisfaction with three pharmaceutical companies on three performance dimensions: company service, product quality, and performance

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d a doctor about the illness related to the ad. Of this group 13% asked a doctor for the drug in the ad and half received it. It was concluded that advertising is an important factor related to pharmaceutical sales. Wright and Lundstrom (2004) reported on the development of a theoretical model to more adequately study physicians' perceptions of pharmaceutical sales representatives. Wright and Lundstrom pointed out that this model must include three areas that are of interest: the physicians' perception of the corporation in which the representative works, the physicians' perception of the values of the representative, and the physicians' perception of the personal characteristics of the representative. The authors stated that research is needed in there areas to help pharmaceutical companies develop in areas such as hiring practices, image management, corporate communications to the medical community, and ethics. Understanding physicians' perceptions of the pharmaceutical company and their representatives will provide the company with a competitive advantage. Attributes listed as personal characteristics included physical attractiveness, congeniality, and similarity. Gender was listed in relation to attractiveness with th
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1254
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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