Providing such a range of services can be costly, however. Mass. General announced last week that 125 employees will be laid off, and more positions will be cut through attrition.

The hospital, the only one of the five situated away from the Harvard Medical School campus, is located near the Charles Street MBTA stop.

Previous Merger

Long-time employees at Brigham and Women's Hospital are already veterans of a previous merger. The hospital was formed in 1980 from what were the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital, the Robert Breck Brigham Hospital and two divisions of the Boston Hospital for Women.

Since its merger, Brigham and Women's has emerged as one of the mightiest of the Harvard teaching hospitals. In the fiscal year ended September 1991, the most recent year for which figures are available at the state Office of Public Charities, the hospital reported an annual operating surplus of $33 million.

Clinically, the hospital is especially noted for its neonatal intensive care unit (the largest and busiest in the state, it says); its burn care unit and its heart, lung, kidney and bone marrow transplant units.

Hospital president Dr. H. Richard Nesson earned more than $600,000 a year, according to a recent tax filing.

Harvard Business School Dean John H. McArthur is chair of the hospital's board of trustees.

A Specialist in 'Very Severe Illnesses'

New England Deaconess Hospital, founded in 1896, "deals with very severe illnesses," says Director of Communications Pam L. Lawrence.

While all five of the teaching hospitals are tertiary care facilities, dealing with the most complicated and life-threatening maladies, the Deaconess pursues such activities with a single-minded zeal. The hospital has no obstetrics department, no pediatrics department and no ordinary emergency room.

In other words, this is not where to go with a broken arm. It is, however, where to go with cancer, AIDS or complications from diabetes.

The hospital has 431 beds and 3,600 full and part-time employees. In the fiscal year ending September 1990, the most recent year for which figures are available, the hospital reported a $2.5 million surplus.

A Hospital for Children

Children's Hospital will celebrate its 125th anniversary in 1994. True to its name, the hospital's character is bound up in the nature of its young patients.