Arbor Vitae was founded in 2003 by physicians who had the experience of working both within the pharmaceutical industry and within the NHS. We had become increasingly concerned that most NHS and Academic physicians had not received any formal or practical training on how to effectively manage relationships with commercial partners. With that in mind, we designed a series of training workshops to help physicians better understand the methods and motivation of companies, and how best to ensure that probity is maintained during the course of any interactions. We were pleased that many senior figures within both the Public Sector and Industry supported the principles of such a training program. To date hundreds of doctors and other healthcare professionals have attended our workshops.
 
As we have raised awareness of these issues, our delegates have asked for continuing support in their dealings with Industry, and from these requests we have developed the new website. The new site contains online educational resources adapted from our courses and the bespoke support tool - Arbor Vitae Partnerships. Is it our hope that all UK physicians who carry out any activity with the pharmaceutical industry will use this tool to help them achieve the highest standards of partnership practice, and be able to demonstrate these in their own organisations appraisal of them. Furthermore, we hope that the arguments and solutions that will ensue on the Discussion Blog will help us to continually improve our services going forward.

 

Arbor Vitae would like to acknowledge the input of many senior clinicians, academics and pharmaceutical physicians who have usefully contributed to this website.

 

We welcome you to Arbor Vitae and hope you find the site useful. If you do, please alert any colleagues who you think might benefit from Membership. We also gratefully welcome any feedback on how to improve our website. 

Dr Peter Aitken
Medical Director, on behalf of Arbor Vitae Education Ltd
Consultant Psychiatrist and R&D Director, Devon Partnership NHS Trust
(Formerly Head of Medical Affairs, Neurosciences, Eli Lilly & Company (UK) Ltd)