Sir

The News article by Rex Dalton about the merger between the hospitals of Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is misleading (Nature 400, 300; 1999).

First, it gives the impression that “faculty leaders” have abruptly changed course and are now calling for dissolution of the merger. Dalton quotes Warren Gold, who has opposed the merger from its outset. But many of our departmental chairs and other leaders of the faculty remain more open-minded about the fate of the merger. In particular, they recognize the substantial disadvantages now posed by dissolution, whatever their original views on the merger.

Second, Dalton appears to blame the merger for the pressures that increasingly impede clinicians from doing scholarly work. This is inaccurate. The pressures arise from the punishing realities of the medical marketplace. They existed before the formation of the merger, and they can be found at academic health centres throughout the United States.

Third, Dalton's article concludes with an undocumented assertion that basic scientists at UCSF are challenging the need for “clinical programmes”. But no sensible basic scientist could imagine a medical school or health-science campus without clinical programmes.

I have been a member of the basic science faculty at UCSF for 30 years and know that it recognizes the importance of physician–scientists and clinical research. Indeed, the collegiality between basic scientists and clinicians at UCSF is exceptional.