Medical School Caught Up in Pennsylvania Hospital Debacle
Constance Holden
Researchers at the largest private medical school in the United States, the MCP-Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia, are facing an uncertain future. The organization that runs the school, the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Education and Research Foundation, after several months of hemorrhaging funds, filed for bankruptcy last month. Its eight Philadelphia hospitals will be put on the block next month, and a court has ordered an academic committee to come up with a plan by mid-October for restructuring MCP-Hahnemann and the three professional schools that make up Allegheny University of the Health Sciences. Officials hope they will be salvaged as an intact, independent university, but researchers lured to Allegheny by promises of high salaries and research support in the past few years are worried.
