The Chronicle’s Todd Ackerman continues his fine reporting on the saga of the Medical Center divorce between The Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine with this report that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has engaged the feuding ex-partners in a series of meetings over the past two weeks for the purpose of ending the bickering between the institutions, which has been going on for the better part of two years now.
In the meantime, Mr. Ackerman reports that, even as the talks took place, eleven Baylor cardiologists left for Methodist, bringing to 80 the total number of physician and faculty defections that Baylor has suffered since the split in April, 2004. Previously, Baylor departments of pathology, neurology/neurosurgery, plastic surgery, anesthesiology and orthopedics suffered physician or faculty losses to Methodist.
A former Houstonian, Mr. Abbott clearly is taking a special interest in resolving the Baylor-Methodist feud that has shaken Houston’s Texas Medical Center. Mr. Abbott was a young attorney in private practice in Houston during the early 1980’s when he was paralyzed from the waist down after being seriously injured by a falling tree branch while jogging at Houston’s Memorial Park. Mr. Abbott was treated at Medical Center hospitals, and he has often publicly expressed his appreciation for the extraordinary treatment that he received there, particularly his rehabilitation stint at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (known as “TIRR”). As such, he is a powerful voice for the public interest in mediating the Baylor-Methodist dispute.