Signs going up at UW Health clinics next month will tell patients that their doctors might be getting paid by drug companies for research or consulting work, officials announced Monday.

It's the latest step by University of Wisconsin-Madison to strengthen conflict-of-interest policies and procedures regarding physicians as national attention to the issue has grown in recent years, said Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

But while patients will be able to ask for and receive details about their doctors, the university won't make its electronic database of the information publicly available on the Internet.

"It would take a lot of time and effort to have an updated database," Golden said. "We believe it will be only a handful of patients requesting this."

The new signs in clinics are part of an effort to coordinate conflict-of-interest policies among health sciences schools on campus and further define what faculty can do with industry, he said.

The medical school forbids free meals for students, faculty and staff, but other schools such as pharmacy and nursing don't specify that, Golden said.

The schools should ban "marketing talks," or speeches written and paid for by drug companies, Golden said.

Faculty from all parts of the university must report income from industry each year, saying whether the pay from each company exceeds $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000. Golden said he wants doctors to report the exact amounts.

That change would make a big difference in what curious patients learn. Dr. Thomas Zdeblick, a UW Hospital orthopedic surgeon, correctly stated that he was earning "more than $20,000" a year from 1998 to 2004 from the medical device company Medtronic. But the total, revealed after a lawsuit made the contact public, was $400,000 a year for a minimum of eight days of work.

Dr. James Stein, a UW Hospital cardiologist, said he and the four other doctors in his group started sending letters to patients two years ago explaining that several of the doctors have financial relationships with companies.

"I've only had two patients ask me about it," Stein said. "But I think disclosure is absolutely necessary."

Stein, who said he gives his money from drug companies for speeches to charity, is chairman of a university committee that will discuss a variety of proposals affecting doctors next month.

On the table: banning or limiting consulting, speeches and certain kinds of research for drug companies — and limiting the total amount of industry income each year.

The UW medical school was recently recognized for having relatively strong conflict-of-interest policies by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession and in a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But "we need to keep moving forward on this," Stein said. "Patients have a right to know."