• Maria S Altieri, Jie Yang, Lily Wang, Donglei Yin, Mark Talamini, and Aurora D Pryor.
• Division of Bariatric, Foregut, and Advanced Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, NY. Electronic address: altieri.m@gmail.com.
• Surgery. 2017 Jul 1; 162 (1): 164-173.

BackgroundThe relationships between industry and medical professionals are controversial. The purpose of our study was to evaluate surgeons' current opinions regarding the industry-surgery partnership, in addition to self-reported industry ties.MethodsAfter institutional review board approval, a survey was sent via RedCap to 3,782 surgeons across the United States. Univariate and multivariable regression analyses were performed to evaluate the responses.ResultsThe response rate was 23%. From the 822 responders, 226 (27%) reported at least one current relationship with industry, while 297 (36.1%) had at least one such relationship within the past 3 years. There was no difference between general surgery versus other surgical specialties (P = .5). Among the general surgery subspecialties, respondents in minimally invasive surgery/foregut had greater ties to industry compared to other subspecialties (P = .001). In addition, midcareer surgeons, male sex, and being on a reviewer/editorial board were associated with having industry ties (P < .05). Most surgeons (71%) believed that the relationships with industry are important for innovation.ConclusionOur study showed that relationships between surgeons and industry are common, because more than a quarter of our responders reported at least one current relationship. Industry relations are perceived as necessary for operative innovation.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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