I rotated with a very unique PCP who would pimp me and other students in front of drug reps
Dr: How do you know when a drug rep is lying?
Me: Um... Uh... (feeling and looking very uncomfortable)
Dr: When their lips are moving.
I was pimped on this enough times I just started to answer automatically.
My standard practice with med students was to let them hear the drug rep, read the pamphlet, ask questions, and then (sometimes with the rep still there) say, "Now this is an excellent opportunity to talk about how to evaluate information you're given, no matter what the source. Let's talk about what (s)he didn't say. Look at the first paragraph of the pamphlet and tell me what questions you'd ask if you suspected the writer was hiding something?" And we'd go through all the handouts; which things are true, which things are half-truths, which are "class effects" and not specifically related to this product at all, and which things are true but are presented in such a way as to imply a conclusion which is false (always the hardest to pick up because the marketing writers are so clever).
I believe there can be a useful relationship with drug reps, but it's tricky.
I was often quite friendly with Drug Reps where I had access to them, and I had no problem asking them for reprints, help arranging to get samples into our pharmacy so we could try a new med (we weren't permitted to have any samples in our offices, and that's fine with me), and use them to get access to the "Clinical Science" staff at the company if I had a question about the basic organic chemistry involved - but they always knew that I wouldn't take a single pen or cookie or a glass of wine. And they knew that I wouldn't believe anything unless it was published in a peer reviewed journal and only after I had read the article. Sometimes I had to contact the authors to get particular questions answered, and they could often facilitate that, too.
I think of Drug Reps in much the same way that I think of something like clozapine; very useful in a certain set of circumstances, but fraught with potential problems which can be fatal, so has to be managed quite carefully and with constant attention. To simply declare that it's never worth the trouble means you are ignoring a tool at your disposal, only because you aren't willing to put in the effort to use it properly and you won't bother to protect yourself from the seduction of attention/praise/flirting/gifts/food/etc.
