Todd Ackerman is the Houston Chronicle reporter who has been doing an outstanding job covering the termination of the Methodist Hospital‘s 50 year primary teaching hospital relationship with Baylor College of Medicine that occurred last year. Here are the earlier posts on this historic split.
In this Sunday Chronicle article, Mr. Ackerman begins a series of articles that will explore the demise of the Baylor-Methodist relationship. Inasmuch as the Baylor-Methodist relationship was one of the many reasons that the Texas Medical Center grew over the past 30 years into one of the world’s premier medical and primary research centers, the termination of the Baylor-Methodist relationship is an important part of Houston’s history.
However, the divorce is also a reflection of the difficulties involved in sustaining even long-term business and professional relationships during this tumultuous period in the American health care industry. When those pressures overwhelm a productive relationship such as the one that Baylor and Methodist developed, the risk increases that a decline in the quality of medical care will be the ultimate result. That is an issue for which all of us should be concerned.
Update: Here is second article in the series.
And the third, which closes with this anecdote:

[A]s the squabbling between Baylor and Methodist shows no signs of abating, the best view might be the last line in a thank you note received by Dr. Richard Stasney, a Methodist ear, nose and throat specialist. It said,

“Let’s pray for peace in the Middle East ? and the Texas Medical Center.”