Peer Review | The Division of Biological Sciences, University of Chicago

WINTER 2007 | VOLUME 5 | No. 1
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Hospitals, Medical Center, Biological Sciences, University… A Perspective

This past summer, the former Hospitals Trustees—now the Medical Center Trustees—worked with the University Trustees to create the University of Chicago Medical Center. This enabled us to bring together all clinical activities of the hospitals (nursing, hospital staff and administration, clinical labs, etc.) with the clinical activities of the Biological Sciences Division (the clinical faculty practices). This also enabled us to redesign the position of the Medical Center President, which was filled in December by David Hefner, to have broad responsibilities over the entire clinical enterprise. He reports to me in my role as the CEO of the University of Chicago Medical Center.

From an administrative point of view, these changes, put simply, allow us to view any clinical encounter, such as a patient being seen in a hospital room by both a doctor and a nurse, as one coherent chain of events. Our entire clinical effort is now centered in one organization—in governance and in trustee oversight.

The introduction of the term “Medical Center,” however, has led to many questions. Among those are: For whom do we really work? What do we call ourselves internally and how will we market ourselves to the outside world? Why will this seemingly simple transition take so long? Are there people in biological sciences but outside of the Medical Center?

Let me take a crack at answering these questions.

We all are part of the University of Chicago, whether that’s through the BSD or the Medical Center. As was true of the hospitals, the Medical Center is a separate corporation, but that corporation is controlled by the University.

We all ultimately work for the University of Chicago, whether that’s through the BSD or the Medical Center. As was true of the Hospitals, the Medical Center is a separate corporation, but that corporation is owned by and is a part of the University.

From now on we will—as rule, but with exceptions—refer to ourselves as the University of Chicago Medical Center. It will take some time to complete this transition, and some parts of the Medical Center will get there faster than others.

Although changing every reference from Hospitals to Medical Center is a vast and costly endeavor, the process is already well underway. Our plan has been to update things at the most opportune moments, such as when people reorder stationery or create new centers. Some more complicated changes will take longer. Because we have so successfully branded “the University of Chicago Hospitals, at the Forefront of Medicine,” for example, we will proceed cautiously in replacing the well-known “Hospitals” with the newer “Medical Center” in our marketing efforts. The ultimate goal, however, is to complete the transition with the opening of the New Hospital Pavilion, which should bear our most dramatic, high profile signage. We plan to break ground for this enormous building, to be constructed across two city blocks, north of Comer and the DCAM, on schedule within the next two years and to open it in 2011.

There is more to the Biological Sciences Division than the Medical Center, however. The Division also includes basic research in biology and the teaching of all aspects of biological sciences to undergraduates as well as graduate and medical students. Even here, the lines are not sharply drawn. There are clinical departments, such as Medicine and Surgery, basic science departments, such as Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Ecology & Evolution, and “bridge” departments, which inherently cross this boundary, such as Human Genetics and Pathology. In fact, one of the things that has always distinguished our complex institution is the ease with which we cross these lines every day, and our ongoing efforts to make that easier still.

I hope this provides some insight into how we are thinking about our name. The most important thing to remember, however, is that no matter what we call ourselves, we are a revitalized organization that now concentrates all clinical care under one roof.

—Jim Madara