Strategic issues for the successful merger of residency training programs

Retrenchment in federal financing, more stringent residency accreditation standards, fewer psychiatric residents, and other factors are putting increased pressure on psychiatric residency training programs to collaborate with or even merge with other residency programs. To improve the likelihood that a collaboration or merger of psychiatric residencies will work, administrators must address such issues as educational philosophy, goals of education and training, governance of the combined program, the impact on faculty and trainees, and the separate institutional cultures. Experiences from the merger of the residency programs at the Institute of Living and the University of Connecticut illustrate some of the factors.