Around The Globe Israeli Medical Association No. 16 | June 2011 A word from the chairman Dear Friends, vices to those from evacuated areas who and opinions on professional issues as e are happy to present you had no access to medical care. well as on the unbalanced exposures and with another issue of ‘IMA I had the pleasure of travelling to discussions of political topics concerning around the Globe’ where the UK, and met our Jewish Medical As- Israel in the British scientific Journals. I Wyou can read about the work of the IMA sociation - UK Chapter. I met medical would like to thank the IMA UK Chapter in Israel and abroad. In February, the students affiliated with the IMA and re- for their generous hospitality during my IMA publically announced our launch viewed Neuroscience practice in Israel. time in London. of “a mission to save public medicine,” I attended an evening event hosted by I am excited to inform you that we demanding additional manpower, more Dr. David Katz, the executive chairman have been invited to present Israeli and beds in hospitals, and incentive pay to of the UK Chapter, which was attended Jewish Medicine at the European Par- draw more physicians to the periphery by the local IMA-WF committee group. liament this November. I would like to and to multiple specialties suffering Throughout the evening we discussed thank Dr. Willie Lipschutz, the executive from physician shortages. This struggle issues related to how Israeli medicine chairman of the Belgian Chapter of IMA- is for health and medicine in Israel and is portrayed in British medical journals, WF for organizing the event. not a regular union matter. Despite an humanitarian issues and the IMA 100 At the beginning of this month the ongoing series of sanctions and protests years’ celebration to be held in Israel in IMA-APF joint grants committee awarded launched by the IMA, negotiations with 2012. I also had the pleasure to meet and 10 scholarships to Israeli physicians to the government remain unsuccessful have discussions with Sir Michael Mar- complete fellowships in Canada and the and Israeli doctors have continued to mot, president of the BMA and Dr. Steve United States. The IMA also awarded 14 strike. Hajioff, Chairman of the Representative scholarships to Israeli physicians to par- Last month our medical students ran Body of the BMA. We exchanged ideas take in fellowship programs throughout four kilometers of the Tel Aviv Marathon the world. We would like to thank Dr. Re- as a display of their support for the IMA’s foel Guggenheim and the Swiss Chapter struggle and the IMA held a mass protest who donated funds which were awarded with approximately 2,500 participants to a physician who will start a year-long outside the Parliament to protest the fellowship program in Switzerland this government’s failure to effectively ad- August. I would like to wish our physi- dress Israel’s collapsing public health cians who received such grants much system. success. The IMA has also been very active in Finally, I would like to remind you the international arena, in response to that the IMA and IMA-WF 100 years cel- the tragic earthquake and subsequent ebration will be held in Israel on April tsunami which swept though Japan this 22-24, 2012. Please save the dates for year, fifty Israeli military doctors arrived this event. in Japan to set up a field clinic for Japa- nese refugees, located approximately 150 miles from the Fukushima reactor. > Zeev Feldman Dr. Zeev Feldman The clinic provided routine medical ser- Chairman, IMA World Fellowship 2 IMA AROUND THE GLOBE | JUNE 2011 IMA Domestic News and Activities Medical Center in Haifa. It is likely to boast Bar-Ilan University plans to model the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv launched a capacity of 1,500 hospital beds that new medical faculty after the National In- their new bombproof medical facility would serve residents of the north. stitute of Health in the United States. The The facility is the largest of its faculty will consist of a number of research kind in Israel and will provide centers in the fields of cancer, heart dis- protection against conventional, chemi- Bar-Ilan’s Galilee med school ease, aging, infectious disease, trauma cal, and biological attack. receives hundreds of applications and childhood development. Planning for this new structure be- from students and lecturers It will also include a center for bio- gan over a decade ago. Its construction Bar-Ilan University’s new faculty of informatics where research in genetics began in February 2008, shortly after medicine, due to open in Safed, in will be conducted to determine gene se- billionaire Sammy Ofer announced that the northern Galil, in October this year, has quencing in relation to disease. A center he would donate $77 million to Ichilov, already received hundreds of applications for medical ethics, law, sociology and Rambam, and Soroka Hospitals, with from students and lecturers hoping to study medical economics will be included in $45 million allocated to Ichilov hopsital. and work in the new school. the new faculty as well. The large infusion of cash expedited the In response, Education Minister and The University will choose faculty bomb-proofing of the facilities, which Council for Higher Education Chairman members for the new school who are ac- was given greater importance following Gideon Sa’ar has recommended that prepa- tively involved in various areas of research the Second Lebanon War. rations for the medical school be sped up including development of new medica- President Shimon Peres unveiled the due to the importance of the project. tions, germs and viruses, bioinformatics, new facility at a ceremony held in March. Once the new medical school has neuro-biology, anatomy and metabolism. The building, which was named after been established, the training of doz- Ten medical scientists have already been Sammy Ofer, has 13 floors above ground, ens of new doctors each year will help recruited to work at the new faculty and and a further four stories underground strengthen the Galilee’s health system the University is currently in the process which can hold between 700 to 1,000 and improve its economic and social de- of choosing the remainder of its teaching hospital beds in case of an emergency. velopment. The school is offering scholar- staff. Over 150 Israeli medical profes- When not under attack, the underground ships to new students as an incentive to sors currently working at Harvard, Yale, structure will operate as a parking lot for work for a few years in one of the Galilee Stanford, University of Florida, University patients. hospitals, hoping to help with the short- of California and Texas Universities have The building has been equipped age of doctors in the region. applied to teach at the new school. with water pipes, oxygen, electricity, ventilation, together with sufficient fuel The stone for generators to last for one week if cut laying off from the external power grid. ceremony for the new The Ofer building will include internal medical medicine departments, cardiology units, school in and other departments that will be as- the Galil on the 4th signed to handle heart problems, blood April 2011 supplies and testing, and brain trauma. The internal medicine units which are currently housed in the old building at Ichilov Hospital are to be transferred to the new facility. An even larger emergency hospital is currently being constructed at Rambam IMA AROUND THE GLOBE | JUNE 2011 3 hospitals including Hadassah Ein Kerem, Hadassah Mount Scopus, Bikur Holim and Shaare Tzedek, which were all open to receive casualties. Sadly, one woman, aged 59, died from injuries sustained in the blast. Mary Gardner, an evangelical Christian and Bible translator originally from Orkney in Northern Scotland, was in Israel studying at the Hebrew University. That same week, 53 mortars and rockets were launched from Gaza into civilian communities in the south, with one grad rocket reaching as far as Ash- kelon, wreaking destruction and injury. Psychological Effects Not only are Israeli citizens suffering direct physical conse- quences of violence, they are also being Health effects of rocket psychologically scarred by the high lev- fire and terrorist acts in Israel els of violence they witness. An Ameri- can Psychiatric Association (APA) study published in 2010 found that life under acts of terrorism over an extended pe- rocket fire can lead to cognitive disen- An Escalation of Terror riod of time than Israel, resulting in se- gagement from threat, which increases The recent escalation of Pales- vere effects on the population’s health the likelihood of developing pathologies tinian missile and mortar fire and safety in the form of death, injury, such as post-traumatic stress disorder on Israel this March along with the vi- widespread psychological trauma and (PTSD) and depression. Attacks have cious murder of 5 members of the Fogel disruption of daily life. taken a high toll on the mental health of family in Itamar, the recent bombing of children and adults, especially in highly a bus station in Jerusalem and the anti- fired-at areas close to the Gaza border tank missile which struck a school bus in Physical Injury and Death such as Ashkelon and Sderot. It is diffi- southern Israel, have marked a growing The health risks posed by ter- cult to effectively assess the longstand- cycle of terrorism and violence, leaving rorism in terms of death and in- ing effects of PTSD on Israeli citizens as the State wondering what to expect next. jury are blatantly apparent. In the recent long as the rockets continue to fall.