 | Merger Games Subjects: History 21st Century; History 20th Century; History 19th Century; Health Facility Merger; Schools Medical; Hospital mergers; Medical colleges; With deepening financial problems, Allegheny Heath, Education and Research Foundation filed for bankruptcy in 1998--in the midst of its landmark merger of The Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University. What resulted was another dire event in an escalating disaster. As civil and criminal investigations probed Allegheny's collapse, the survival of the medical school and other health sciences university schools, and the operation of the hospitals hung in the balance. Fortunately, a savior arrived in the form of Drexel University who used this opportunity to create its own medical school. Merger Games is Judith Swazey's gripping account of this historic transaction. Based on extraordinarily detailed first-hand research and continuous inside access to the developments, this book clearly delineates who the players were and what this merger means for the future of medical education and institutional healthcare. Merger Games is a definitive history of one of the most important academic medicine mergers in Philadelphia and the country, which happened at a time when medical care was becoming commodified in almost every state. Judith Swazey is an independent scholar and an Adjunct Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health. Her publications, which have focused on social, ethical, and policy issues in biomedical research, health care, and professional education, include In Sickness and in Health: Social Dimensions of Medical Care (with Ralph Hingson, Norman Scotch, and James Sorenson); Social Controls and the Medical Profession (edited with Stephen Scher); and, with Renée C. Fox, The Courage to Fail: A Social View of Organ Transplants and Dialysis , Spare Parts: Organ Replacement in American Society , and Observing Bioethics . |
