Morton Creditor, a professor emeritus from the KU school of medicine, says media reports aren’t focusing on the real issue in the debate about whether the school should branch out of its partnership with KU Hospital to include Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. In an editorial piece in today’s Kansas City Star, Creditor writes that the real issue is KU Hospital’s obligation to provide better support to the school’s academic mission– not whether the hospital is likely to suffer financial harm if the medical school strikes a deal with a new hospital._”The only justification for any incredibly expensive university hospital is to support the clinical needs of the university’s educational programs. It is the laboratory for clinical research and the classroom for the clinical education of students. Both objectives must be a model of the highest quality of care…__KUMC will be recognized as a major research university, as it should be, when it puts the horse back before the cart. When it does not need to compete with its major clinical support entity and is free to affiliate with whichever institutions can broaden its opportunities for diversified clinical experiences for its students and clinical laboratories for its scientists and which do not limit those opportunities in pursuit of profit.”_-contributed by Eric Weslander