Following up on a story noted in this earlier post, the Chronicle’s Todd Ackerman continues his outstanding reporting over the past year on the historic split between Baylor Medical School and Methodist Hospital with this article in which he reports that Baylor has formally accused Methodist of attempting to put the medical school out of busienss in connection with an administrative proceeding before the entity that manages the Texas Medical Center.
The context of the current phase of the dispute between the two longtime Medical Center partners is a proceeding before the Texas Medical Center’s covenant compliance committee in which the committee will determine whether Methodist is violating the Medical Center’s deed restrictions by starting competitive education and research programs with New York’s Cornell University Weill Medical School. Baylor contends that the programs and affiliation between Methodist and Cornell is an attempt by Methodist to harm Baylor.
Although a legal longshot (Texas law does not favor covenants that restrict competition), Baylor’s latest salvo is another public relations nightmare for Methodist, which is attempting to carve out a post-Baylor plan to remain a primary research institution. Methodist has a big advantage in that its $2.3 billion endowment is over twice the size of Baylor’s endowment, but Baylor is aggressively pursuing new affiliations with other Medical Center institutions. Consequently, there is no assurance that Methodist’s current financial advantage will result in a dominant position in the Medical Center five to ten years down the road, particularly if Methodist’s research affiliations do not compete effectively with those of Baylor and other Medical Center institutions.
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Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
The charges leveled against Methodist are more serious than I would have earlier thought, and it seems like what Methodist is doing is bad for Houston. Sure there is only a lateral movement in physicians and researchers from one side of Fannin to the other, but what Methodist can do with its warchest is take all of Baylor and UT-Houston’s top researchers away and classify them under Cornell/Methodist. Thus, two of Houston’s jewels in terms of improving the city through medical education and research are in danger of losing faculty to a non-Texas institution in Cornell (at least in name).
If medical school caliber is determined in the same way that law and business schools are, then Houston is shooting itself in the foot by allowing a non-Texas institution with a superior endowment (not counting St. Luke’s and Memorial Hermann) to take away top researchers from our growing medical schools. Oftentimes the only way to recruit star faculty is by using the prestige of the current faculty as enticement, and along with those faculty come private opportunities for biotech startups and research. It seems that long-term, Methodist would be hurting Houston by taking the star faculty away from our two medical schools leading to a viscious cycle that ultimately hurts Houston more than helps.
Methodist is in the Texas Medical Center– the last thing we need are more mature northeastern medical schools with better name recognition (currently) impeding with the growth of our young city/medical center.