BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

great efforts over several years, I succeeded in obtaining the money. We established a special planning committee,

which I chaired, that guided construction of the 3,000 square-meter building. The cornerstone was laid in May 1996, and today the School of Health Professions stands proudly on campus flanked by the buildings of the medical school and dentistry school. The building serves three majors: nursing, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy. The program in communication disorders operates primarily out of the audiology institute of Sheba Hospital. We established a research unit. One of its functions was mapping the needs for faculty research. There was an interdisciplinary research committee that had members from all the fields. I considered it to be very important. Another function was providing faculty assistance in their research. We consolidated statistical support for the school faculty. The research unit also collected and disseminated data on research methods; and it created workshops for faculty and graduate students. A special grant fund was set up to assist in research work. The fund was graciously backed by philanthropist Irving Schneider whose one proviso was that funding for research be earmarked for pediatric health research. I viewed with favor joint coursework across majors. This is still my position, but such shared curricula did not take off. I tried, but each major in the university is very “patriotic” about its profession and jealously guards its turf as unique to the specialty. I was unable to break down the walls that separate these health professions. I visited a university near Stockholm that had developed this concept within the framework of the World Health Organization, but my successes in Israel in this regard were limited. Nevertheless, there were joint studies among students in physiotherapy and occupational therapy in the fields of anthropology, sociology, pathology, neurology, physiology, neuroanatomy, and introduction to psychology. In the nursing major, there was a course labeled “holistic treatment of the person and his family by health professionals.” But beyond this, to be honest, I did not succeed in integrating studies between the majors. I tried to establish an additional major, optometry, on a high level. At the time, this specialty was not studied on a high level in Israel, and there was only one school of this profession in the country. But this initiative clashed with aspirations of the Minister of Education, Amnon Rubenstein, to develop, or upgrade, the regional colleges in Israel. He held that such studies as optometry needed to be conducted in the colleges, not in the universities. I believe this is a mistake: These specialties can be equally taught at colleges or universities. Be what may, his stand on this issue put the brakes on my aspirations to further expand the School of Health Professions. In the seven years of operation during which I served as dean of the School of Health Professionals student enrollment rose from 941 to 1,607. These numbers don’t include immigrant medical students taking introductory courses, and students enrolled in ongoing education programs. Although the university offered me the option to continue as dean, l proposed that Prof. Hanan Munitz take over the deanship of the school and I turned to focusing on health policy on a volunteer basis.

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