Pulse

This past year has witnessed the announcement of impending mergers among many of the premier academic medical centers and schools in this country. These mergers are intended to fortify the clinical and scientific preeminence of many academic medical centers against the fiscal pressures exerted by a health care environment increasingly dominated by managed care. While such actions may competitively position academic medical centers in the health care delivery market, little has been said about the effects such mergers will have on another equally important mission of academic medical centers: the education of future physicians.

This issue of Pulse addresses this question from the perspectives of administrators and medical students. Herbert Pardes, MD, dean of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Carl Nathan, MD, acting dean at Cornell University Medical College, write about the planned alliance between Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and the New York Hospital