BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

of the internal medicine department at Soroka Hospital, 29 and Prof. Gabriel Terek, 30 head of orthopedics at the new hospital, offered me the position of chair of the committee to investigate conditions for establishing a medical school. They did this although I was not a department head at the hospital, just Clalit regional physician; but they were cognizant that my appointment ensured the struggle to establish a medical school would continue. One of the first actions I took was to go to Kibbutz Sde Boker to request Ben-Gurion’s support behind establishing the school of medicine. I knew Ben-Gurion. As a physician, I had treated him; and from time to time, I would go to his prefab domicile to discuss various matters. So, I went to him and said: “Ben-Gurion, we want to establish a school of medicine in Beer Sheva, and I’m asking for your help.” He looked at me and asked: “Who’s the Minister of Health today?” I responded, “Israel Barzilai.” Ben-Gurion replied curtly: “With that Minister of Health...I don’t talk (sic. I’m not on speaking terms)!” Indeed, Ben-Gurion was a political rival of Israel Barzilai, but there was another unstated motivation behind Ben-Gurion’s lack of support. From the start, Ben-Gurion had been against establishing a university in Beer Sheva because he wanted to establish a university along the lines of Oxford or Cambridge near Kibbutz Sde Boker. Only at a much later stage, when the university in Beer Sheva became, for all intents and purposes an established fact, was Beer Sheva’s mayor Tuviyahu able to convince Ben-Gurion that there was no turning back the clock. Thus, I left Ben-Gurion without any help on his part or support for a school of medicine in Beer Sheva. Whether Ben Gurion was right or wrong, let history be the judge. I embarked on seeking a candidate for dean. At the time Dr. Charles Kleeman from Los Angeles had been appointed head of the internal medicine department at Hadassah Ein Karem for a period of one year. In the U.S., Kleeman had been head of the nephrology department at Cedars Sinai hospital. In my efforts to bring doctors to Israel, I had visited L.A., and we’d become friendly. The bond was cemented by our shared outlook of the importance of community medicine. Kleeman had delved deep into this subject and was passionate about it. I viewed him as a possible candidate for the deanship of the medical school and approached him during his year-long sojourn in Israel. Unfortunately, his wife was not interested in staying in Israel and they returned to Los Angeles. But during this period, the Institute for Higher Learning for the Negev was taking shape. And together with the Institute, we convinced a committee – that became known as the Kleeman Committee – to discuss establishment of a medical school. The objective was to “to formulate within a short time, an operative program for running such a school of medicine” with a curriculum that would meet the health system’s needs in the community. Asked to join the Committee were Prof. Moshe Rachmilevich from Hadassah Hospital, one of the founding fathers of the medical school in Jerusalem, Prof. Moshe Prywes, 31 who was the head of medical education at the medical school in Jerusalem, Prof. Shimon Gitter who was the second dean of the school of medicine in Tel Aviv, and another two or three professors from the United States. The Kleeman Committee convened in the city of Arad in the Negev. After two or three days of deliberations, a landmark report was hammered out that set forth the architecture for a medical school that would reflect our outlook -- one with a community orientation: “Initial studies would 29 Prof. Eliyahu Lehman (1914-2011), an internist, was born in Germany, studied medicine in Heidelberg and was among the first physicians in the Negev. He founded and directed the first hospital in Beer Sheva (Hadassah Hospital in Beer Sheva), and he was the first director of Internal Medicine Department A at Soroka Medical Center, a position he held for 20 years. He was awarded Beer Sheva’s Key to the City in 1975. 30 Prof. Gabriel Terek (1917-1991) was born in Hungary and studied medicine in Czechoslovakia. He immigrated to Israel in 1949; and he was the founder and first director of the orthopedics department at Soroka Medical Center and among the founders of Ben-Gurion University’s medical school. 31 Prof. Moshe Prywes (1914-1998), who was born in Poland, studied medicine in Paris and Warsaw, served in the Polish army in the Second World War, became a prisoner of war (POW), and served as a doctor in a POW camp in a Siberian gulag. After the war, he served as a member of the medical directorship of the Jewish health organization OSE in Paris [OSE or OZE in French, Œuvre de secours aux enfants, which had been established in 1912.] He initiated the OSE’s program to eradicate tuberculosis, trachoma, and ringworm in Jewish communities in North Africa in the years 1947-1951. He then immigrated to Israel in 1951 and was appointed deputy dean for medical education at the faculty of medicine in Jerusalem. He later became the first president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (1969- 1974) and first dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (1974-1979).

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