BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

EPILOGUE

Looking Towards the Future

If I had to relay to the coming generations some of the perspectives and basic conclusions that I have arrived at in the course of my work in the Israeli health system, as traced in this book, I would sum them up as follows: Family medicine as a recognized specialization is the foundation for good public medicine. This is all the more so in an era of super-specialization and technological developments that fragment medicine more and more. One should view the future of family medicine as a national priority that to a large extent will determine the quality of medicine in the State of Israel. The future of specialization in family medicine hinges to a great extent on incentives that it is imperative the state give to training and practicing in the periphery vs. the center of Israel. The incentives can be general for all fields of specialization. There is special importance of the role to be played by the medical schools in Israel. They need to strengthen their departments of family medicine. The establishment of the Faculty of Health Sciences in the Negev, within the flourishing university in Beer Sheva with its high educational standards, is not just a contribution to Beer Sheva and the Negev. This Faculty contributes to medical education in Israel as a whole and to the level of medical services, education, and research in the State of Israel. The concept “the Beer Sheva spirit” 172 is reflected in the character of the work of every Ben-Gurion University medical school graduate in hospitals and the level of services of community medicine in the Negev. This is not diminished, even if I may have had higher hopes in this regard. Among my endeavors in Beer Sheva, I should cite the first organized initiative to absorb new immigrant doctors, a revolutionary program that became a model for absorption of immigrant physicians from other countries. It was so successful that 90 percent of participants in the original Latin American program stayed in Israel. As for the National Health Insurance Law, I see special importance to my testimony before the Netanyahu Commission, and the impact of Clalit in testimony presented to the Commission. I believe such testimony was not in vain and influenced the conclusions of the Commission. This was particularly in regard to the clause on personnel. 173 Vitalization of family medicine was a core matter in the operations of Clalit, and I imagine my testimony before the Commission had an impact on this section of their report. The National Institute for Health Policy Research is a central body that unites all sectors of the health system in the country and incorporates all health professions. It has led to both development of research in the health services field and development of health management studies at the universities. These have contributed to a complete revolution in medical management becoming a profession, not merely an occupation. All these need to be further strengthened. With them it will be possible to preserve egalitarian public medicine that has been and must continue to be, a source of pride for generations to come, and a benchmark and model for others around the world.

172 See Chapter 3, Footnote 38. 173 "The status of family medicine and the family doctor must be strengthened…Shifting the center of medical care to the community…” in The Netanyahu Commission - an Inquiry into the Role and the Efficiency of the Health System, Jerusalem, 1990, page 379

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