Podcast Episode 30: The Human Advantage: Academic Detailing in the Age of AI & Misinformation

Host: Bevin K. Amira, Deputy Director, NaRCAD

A conversation with Jerry Avorn, MD, Co-Founder & Special Adviser, NaRCAD
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Tag: Podcast Series, Evidence Based Medicine

Tune into Jerry Avorn's insights about why evidence-based conversations with clinicians are needed now more than ever, and why we need to come together this November for the annual convening of our field.

​Jerry Avorn, MD, NaRCAD's Co-Founder & Special Adviser, shares the ways in which detailing visits are critical to support clinicians whose patients are receiving misinformation about their care. Join us this fall and take us up on our SPECIAL OFFER through September 15, 2026: Use PODCAST CODE: "JERRY" to register for our Annual Conference and receive $300 off of in-person registration or CODE "JERRYVIRTUAL" for $100 off of virtual registration. Visit our Conference Page for more information about our annual event!

​Click here for the audio transcription.

"The fiscal stringencies that we are facing really make evidence-based prescribing and other forms of healthcare more adamantly necessary, almost on an emergency basis."
-Jerry Avorn, MD

Biography. Dr. Avorn is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief Emeritus of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics (DoPE) at Brigham & Women's Hospital. A general internist, geriatrician, and drug epidemiologist,  he pioneered the concept of academic detailing and is recognized internationally as a leading expert on this topic and on optimal medication use, particularly in the elderly.

The division he created includes faculty with backgrounds in internal medicine and its subspecialties, geriatrics, epidemiology, health services research and policy, biostatistics, and computer science. His major areas of research include: the scientific, policy, and social factors that shape physicians’ drug choices; the identification and prevention of adverse drug effects; medication compliance by patients; programs to improve the appropriateness of prescribing and drug taking; and pharmaceutical cost-effectiveness analysis.

Dr. Avorn completed his undergraduate training at Columbia University in 1969, received the M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1974, and completed a residency in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He has served as president of the International Society for Pharmaco-Epidemiology and was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines. Dr. Avorn is the author or co-author of over 600 papers in the medical literature on medication use and its outcomes, and is one of the most highly-cited researchers working in the area of medicine and the social sciences. His latest book is "Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take," published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. An earlier book, “Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs,” was published by Knopf in 2004. Dr. Avorn is the Chief Clinical Consultant for Alosa Health, a non-profit that provides academic detailing services. He receives no payment for any of his academic detailing-related work.

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