Following the American Example? American Models for Hospital Medicine and Research: The Case of the Kerckhoff Institute in Bad Nauheim

This essay examines how and why American models were applied in the reorganization of West German hospitals and medical research centers in the post-war period. After discussing why American clinical medical centers turned into model institutions over the last century or so, a case study is discussed in some detail: the Kerckhoff Institute for cardiovascular research in Bad Nauheim, since 1951 an institute within the Max Planck Society with its own research clinic (which was unusual for Max Planck Institutes). The history of this institution illustrates which local and specific considerations drove historical actors to embrace American models. German academic and administrative realities, however, imposed tight constraints on the implementation of US institutional models.