From The National Resource Center on Academic Detailing NaRCAD. In a thought piece published on the NaRCAD blog in October 2025, Jerry Avorn, MD — Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, co-founder of NaRCAD, and author of Rethinking Medications — argues that the concept of "provenance" has become the defining challenge for evidence-based medicine in the current political moment. Dr. Avorn opens by tracing the word itself. "Provenance," he explains, means the source

From The People’s Pharmacy. Abstract "Americans spend more on drugs and have less to show for it than people in other countries. The FDA used to be the envy of the world. Has it been captured by the pharmaceutical industry it's supposed to regulate?" In this wide-ranging episode of The People's Pharmacy — one of the most substantive and practically useful interviews in the archive — Dr. Jerry Avorn joins hosts Joe and Terry Graedon for a 70-minute conversation covering the er

From the JAMA Health Forum. By Helen Mooney, Kirsten Austad, Eric G. Campbell, Jerry Avorn, MD, Zhigang Lu, Aaron S. Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH. SUMMARY: This JAMA Health Forum survey study examines how medical students' and residents' interactions with and attitudes toward the pharmaceutical industry changed over a 13-year period from 2011 to 2024. The research team — which includes Avorn, a founding figure in academic detailing research — surveyed the same population of train

From Changing Minds Podcast. Teaser/Abstract "How do we stay the course and stay rooted in facts amidst a major disruption impacting the healthcare landscape? 'Godfather' and originator of academic detailing Jerry Avorn joins the show to share his reflections on the current state of healthcare; the history of treatment and medications prior to rigorous study; his new book, Rethinking Medications; the critical importance of treating evidence, facts, and science as our collecti

From the New England Journal of Medicine. By Jerry Avorn, MD. SUMMARY: In this NEJM Perspective written shortly after Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize in Economics for behavioral economics, Dr. Avorn applies behavioral decision-making insights to clinical practice — particularly to prescribing decisions. Avorn argues that the simplified rational-actor model of physician decision-making fails to account for the psychological biases, heuristics, and cognitive shortcuts that s

From Health Affairs. By Michael Fischer, MD and Jerry Avorn, MD. SUMMARY: This Health Affairs article by Fischer and Avorn argues that academic detailing — the practice of providing clinicians with personalized, evidence-based educational outreach — is well positioned to help translate comparative effectiveness research (CER) findings into improved prescribing. As the national emphasis on CER generates growing volumes of head-to-head comparisons of drugs and other interventio

From the New England Journal of Medicine. By Jerry Avorn, MD. SUMMARY: In this NEJM Perspective, written on the 50th anniversary of US legislation that transformed prescription drug approval, Dr. Avorn examines the still-unresolved question of who should be responsible for teaching clinicians about drugs. In 1961, the FDA gained authority to require proof of efficacy, creating a new need for authoritative, evidence-based drug information to reach prescribers. Half a century o

From Health Affairs. By Jerry Avorn, MD and Michael Fischer, MD. SUMMARY: This Health Affairs article by Avorn and Fischer addresses the challenge of translating comparative effectiveness research (CER) findings from the bench into actual improvements in clinical practice. The authors argue that the national investment in CER — stimulated in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — will generate an unprecedented volume of new head-to-head comparisons of drugs and

From the New England Journal of Medicine. ByJerry Avorn, MD; Stephen B. Soumerai, MSPH; D. Everitt; D. Ross-Degnan; M.H. Beers; D. Sherman; et al. SUMMARY: This NEJM research article reports a randomized controlled trial in which an academic-detailing educational program was tested in nursing homes to reduce the inappropriate use of psychoactive (sedating) medications in elderly residents. Avorn, Soumerai, and colleagues randomized nursing homes and tracked prescribing outcom

From JAMA. By Jerry Avorn, MD and Stephen B. Soumerai, MSPH. SUMMARY: This 1983 JAMA letter/brief report by Avorn and Soumerai serves as a companion to their landmark NEJM randomized controlled trial published the same year, introducing their approach to reducing suboptimal drug use through educational outreach to physicians. Together, the two 1983 papers established the conceptual and empirical foundation for academic detailing as a field. The JAMA piece reaches the clinical

From New England Journal of Medicine. By Jerry Avorn. Abstract Improving precision and economy in the prescribing of drugs is a goal whose importance has increased with the proliferation of new and potent agents and with growing economic pressures to contain healthcare costs. We implemented an office-based physician education program to reduce the excessive use of three drug groups: cerebral and peripheral vasodilators, an oral cephalosporin, and propoxyphene. A four-state sa