Town and gown: Turning rivalries into relationships

Academic physicians and community physicians in some cities are turning from fighting each other to fighting together for common causes.

By Damon Adams and Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Jan. 13, 2003.

In Tucson, Ariz., during the 1980s and early '90s, doctors used to refer patients to the University Medical Center then never see them again. Community physicians said university physicians didn't communicate with them, and patients weren't sent back to their primary physicians for follow-ups.

"The patients of community physicians would just disappear into this black hole," said John Sullivan Jr., MD, associate dean of clinical affairs at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and chief medical officer of University Physicians medical group. "They'd be admitted here, and their doctor would never hear from any of our faculty. We did not want to lower ourselves to communicate. There was an arrogance factor."

Community and academic doctors also sparred more than 10 years ago when the medical center, the university's teaching hospital, sought to add 300 more hospital beds -- a move that some in the community viewed as an effort to wipe out competition with eight area hospitals. But the university failed to garner enough support from the local doctors for the expansion, and it settled for 100 more beds.

In recent years, the friction between academic and community physicians in Tucson has smoothed out, improving to the point where the two sides seem more like brothers than distant cousins.

In 2002, the dean of the medical college appointed a community doctor to serve as a liaison between private and academic doctors, and two of the last six presidents of the Tucson-based Pima County Medical Society have been university faculty members. Both actions were aimed at fostering fellowship.