BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

be comprised of five years, followed by two-years when the fledgling doctor would be doing an internship in the community” The convening of the Committee and its recommendations set in motion the great struggle to establish a school of medicine in Beer Sheva. The Question of an Additional Medical school in Israel The first full-fledged medical school was established in Jerusalem in 1949 through collaboration between the Hebrew University and Hadassah. It occupies a special place in the history of medicine in Israel. The school pioneered the training of dozens of doctors who ultimately became department heads in all the hospitals in Israel. But these individuals had one weakness: every time an initiative was raised for an additional medical school in the country, in Tel Aviv, in Haifa or in Beer Sheva, their opposition was unbending and extreme. Their primary argument in opposition was the claim there was no need for an additional medical school in the country, a claim that reinforced the natural tendency of the Ministry of Finance to oppose establishment of another medical school. In spite of the likelihood of opposition, two figures led the initiative to establish a medical school in Tel Aviv as part of Tel Aviv University: Prof. Andre De Vries from Clalit’s Beilinson Hospital, who had gotten his medical training at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital, and Prof. Chaim Sheba, director of the Tel-Hashomer Hospital, a 1948 military hospital that had turned into a civilian, government-run, hospital that was on the outskirts of Ramat Gan and not far from Tel Aviv. Hebrew University faculty exhibited strident and unreasonable opposition to establishing a medical school in Tel Aviv. There certainly weren’t any logical foundations for their opposition, particularly when one takes into account the abundance of hospital beds in the Tel Aviv area. The opposition, De Vries, Sheba, and their colleagues discovered, lay in the fact there was also an initiative afoot to establish a medical school in Haifa, where Prof. David Erlich from the Technion was the chief driving force. Later, the same sort of oppositional behavior was encountered in regard to the initiative to establish a medical school in Beer Sheva. But the struggle against a medical school in Beer Sheva was far more pronounced and unbridled. How and why will be elucidated further on. The Berenzon Commission - Haifa or Beer Sheva? Minister of Health, Ysrael Barzilai, established a commission headed by a supreme court justice, Zvi Berenzon. The members of the Berenzon Commission were: Prof. Pinchas Efrati from Clalit’s Kaplan Hospital, which was affiliated then, and to this day, with the Hebrew University’s medical school; Prof. Moshe Prywes, who was head of medical education in Jerusalem; Prof. Chaim Sheba; Prof. Andre De Vries, who represented the school of medicine in Tel Aviv; and S. Rosen, who, as chair of the Knesset’s Public Services Committee that addressed health matters, represented the Knesset on the panel.

Minister Barzilai requested the Commission address three questions. A. Is there a need for a third medical school in the country?

B. If the conclusion is that there is a need, where should it be located, Haifa or Beer Sheva? C. If the conclusion is that there is no need for an additional medical school, what are the solutions to the severe shortage of doctors in villages, on the frontier, and in immigrant communities?

As the medical director of Clalit, I submitted a detailed report to the Barzilai Commission on the shortage of doctors on the periphery, particularly the shortage of young doctors in primary

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