**5. Conclusion**

The health care industry continues to evolve. Economic pressures can have unpredictable results, including mergers in health care systems and therefore associated graduate medical education programs. While there is not a wide breadth of published information regarding previous merged programs, we can learn from the successes of those programs that have published data to set up future mergers for success. A comprehensive examination of the publications which have been reviewed in this chapter have identified some key points of importance in the process of graduate medical education program mergers: leadership, communication, and culture. Establishing an effective leader who can formulate a plan and then institute that plan is the first step to success. He or she must be a dynamic individual who is able to solicit and take advice and criticism from all those involved in the process, both residents and faculty alike. Productive communication with leadership will be key for ongoing success during the process of the merger. This will allow for the process to evolve as challenges arise, to ultimately create a program from which all will benefit. Institutional cultural differences must be acknowledged in order to create a cohesive merged program. Through establishing a positive set of attitudes, behaviors, and policies, cultural competence can be a characteristic of the newly formed program.

There is still much regarding residency mergers that is unknown. In order to have a more concrete evaluation of the success of graduate medical education mergers, a survey that is externally validated should be administered to residents and faculty. This would allow for an objective evaluation of the merging process, so that common issues could be identified and addressed in future mergers. Overall, residency mergers are not well described. The goal of this chapter is to provide a conglomerate of available information and to identify issues that may occur. As mergers continue to occur, we hope that this chapter may prove valuable to not only the leadership responsible for the merger, but also anyone involved in the process.

*Graduate Medical Education Program Mergers: Key Aspects and Considerations DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94878*
