Evolution of an Academic Department

The health-care industry and its professional practice are currently in uncertain times as the outcome of the hotly debated health-care reform is awaited. While the magnitude of potential change may be unchallenged, the past century has been one of continual change for the medical profession and its practice. The rapidity of this change has continually increased with emerging new technologies and changes in the social fabric of society. Even the doctor-patient relationship has changed.

Medicine as a profession and the specialties within it have had to adapt to this change in order to be relevant to the physicians it trains, the patients they treat, and to maintain status among their peers. This book chronicles the history of the successful adaptation to required changes in one medical-school department.