Teaching Hospitals

Dr. John Cameron, graying and slightly stooped, walks daily past a portrait of himself as a dark-haired young physician. The 1970 picture hangs in a Johns Hopkins Hospital corridor near his office. It is one among scores going back to 1890 that line these walls. Photo after photo shows the young doctors, nearly all men, as they completed training for careers in which surgical feats were expected. Cameron, 69, is the product of the age in which surgeons dominated their hospitals. They revolutionized care, producing a cult of personality in which medical residents modeled themselves after those who had boldly made their marks.

The General Assembly is poised to pass legislation that would make Maryland the 19th state to legalize marijuana use for medical reasons - though how quickly the state's cancer patients and others might benefit remains in question. The state Senate gave the legislation preliminary approval Friday evening without debate. The bill, which has passed the House, would allow the legal distribution of marijuana by doctors and nurses through academic medical centers. A commission would be set up to spell out the terms under which it would be grown and dispensed.

Johns Hopkins Medicine has signed an agreement to open the first private, four-year medical school and teaching hospital in Malaysia in the Baltimore-based health system's latest effort to expand its reach overseas. Executives from Hopkins signed an agreement with a Malaysian partner Tuesday during a ceremony attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Hopkins will act largely in a consultative and advisory role to the Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine and Perdana University Hospital, but will have "significant control over the content and quality of the education delivered," Mohan Chellappa, president of global ventures for Johns Hopkins Medicine International, said in an e-mail.

Johns Hopkins Hospital might be the best in the nation, as one survey suggests, but that's no guarantee of success in a marketplace where insurers are demanding lower prices as well as high quality. Last week Hopkins announced it would "re-engineer" itself over the next three to five years to compete more effectively. It won't be easy. Academic medical centers face unique problems because they also teach young doctors, do research and care for large numbers of indigent patients, costs that push their charges higher than community hospitals.

There's not much point in a budget surplus that's not used for debt reduction.Maryland privatized juvenile prisons in 1992. Only now people are starting to wonder why.Everyone favors the current health care system except patients, physicians, employers and research and teaching hospitals.Turkey can kill Abdullah Ocalan. Most countries would. That's not the same as ending Kurdish rebellion.It's hard to play cops and robbers before the cops arrive, as they are learning in Kosovo.Lawrence Bell for president of the City Council!

BALTIMOREFor more information, call (410) 659-7300 or (800) 343-3468 outside Maryland.May 2-4: Technical Association of the Graphic Arts annual convention, Baltimore Marriott. Expected attendance: 200.May 4-6: Association of American Medical Colleges, teaching hospitals conference, Hyatt Regency. Contact: Marcie A. Foster, 2450 N St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037-1126. Expected attendance: 200.May 13-17: ServiStar Corp. trade show, Convention Center. Contact: Jan Schofield, Box 1510, Butler, Pa. 16003.

WASHINGTON -- The American Medical Association and representatives of the nation's medical schools said yesterday that the United States is training far too many doctors and that the number should be cut by at least 20 percent."

BALTIMOREFor more Baltimore convention information, call the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association at (410) 659-7300 or (800) 343-3468 outside Maryland.Feb. 15-17: American Craft Enterprises wholesale show to the trade in the Baltimore Convention Center. Contact: Gil Stotler, 659-7300. Attendance: 6,500.May 4-6: Association of American Medical Colleges, teaching hospitals conference, Hyatt Regency. Contact: Marcie A. Foster, N St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037-1126. Expected attendance: 200.Sept.