Talk:Academic medical centre

Concept and scope

 * The term "Academic Health Science Centre", as I understand it, is pretty much a U.K. term (although it is apparently used in other parts of the Commonwealth). It is roughly equivalent to the term "Medical Center" in the U.S. except that, whereas "Academic Health Science Centre" has a fairly well-defined meaning, "Medical Center" is a loose term which is sometimes applied to everything from a clinic to a university medical complex. In general, though, "Medical Center" is considered properly used to refer to the same category of beast as "Academic Health Science Centre". It seems to me that either (1) This article should be generalized to mention terminology other than just the U.K. terminology and perhaps be merged with Medical center which is now a disambig, or (2) Narrow this article to discussing a U.K. designation with a meaning defined by the government and eliminate discussion of it as a world concept. --Mcorazao (talk) 18:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Following on from the comments above, I don't think we should get too hung up on the precise form of words used. The AHSC concept is NOT a UK idea but (I think) an American one, albeit one that seems to lack a clear name itself. More importantly, given that close partnerships between universities and hospitals have existed for decades in the UK and elsewhere, in what way is an AHSC distinct from other kinds of university-hospital partnership? Without that, we don't really have a definition at all. --willbown —Preceding undated comment added 11:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC).


 * This article badly needs a re-think. The definition we currently have (in this article) for an AHSC basically covers any facility that combines healthcare services, medical education and medical research – i.e., any modern university clinic. The list is arbitrary, and could be extended to include most university hospitals in Europe, and probably the rest of the world too. (For instance, Sweden: Karolinska is mentioned on this list, but in fact all seven Swedish university hospitals are set up as partnerships between a university (responsible for teaching and research) and a regional Health Board (responsible for healthcare services): see for example Lund, Uppsala etc. The same applies for any Universitair medisch centrum in the Netherlands, e.g., Erasmus MC or UMC Groningen which are also not mentioned here. Likewise, any German Universitätsklinikum e.g. Freiburg, etc. could be regarded as an AHSC.) The term AHSC is practically non-existent in current usage outside the UK; in most of Europe, we would translate to English as “University Medical Centre” or similar. This article creates the impression that AHSCs are some particular/unique/special form of co-operation between hospitals and universities, but in fact the term simply describes what has become the norm for any modern university medical centre. We should either narrow this article down to a specific UK concept (as in the Imperial College example, see below), or broaden it to a general, worldwide discussion of university medical centres. I'm for the latter: I propose we rename the article to “University medical centre”, discuss similarities and differences between countries, and then mention “AHSC” as a specific term used in the UK. What do other people think? HAdG (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

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UK vs. US
I am in consensus that the scope of the article should be a bit more broad. I'm still slightly new at editing Wikipedia, so excuse some of my ignorance if any of this doesn't make sense. I'm editing Texas Medical Center, and I need a definition of what a "medical center" is. As stated above, it could mean a single building, a couple of hospitals, or a huge mini-city such as the Houston Center. 1) I think the lead should be changed to move the view away from the UK concept. From reading the lead, it seems this term of AHSC in its current form isn't really the physical definition of a medical center. I think that's what we should be focusing on. The Houston Center has several University-connected parts, but it also has many other properties and buildings that have zero connection to a University.   2) Should the use of UK-themed grammar be removed? (centre)?

I am going to do some research, and see if there is enough information out there to create a U.S. specific article that more closely resembles what we see a medical center as in the U.S. Let me know of any flack. Thanks all! Taylor2646 (talk) 16:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Relationship between Imperial College London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College AHSC
″In October 2007 Imperial College Healthcare became the first AHSC to be established in the UK when the Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine merged with the Hammersmith Hospital and St Mary's NHS trusts.[4]″ This is not correct.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is an NHS Trust not an AHSC. It was formed by a merger of Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and St Mary's NHS Trust. Imperial College London's Faculty of Medicine did not merge with the NHS trusts, it's still a Faculty of Imperial.

The Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre was formed in 2007 as a partnership between Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. In 2016 The Roayal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust joined the AHSC. DavidCh0 (talk) 15:12, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

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