BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

Prof. Prywes was head of the medical education department at Hebrew University’s medical school in Jerusalem. As a member of the Berenson Commission, he had voted against establishing a medical school in Beer Sheva. But later, Prywes began to think that my, and Clalit’s, concept for a medical school in Beer Sheva wasn’t just another idea. He wrote a letter to Soroka at Clalit headquarters that indicated he had changed his opinion on the matter. This move was designed to adopt the same guise used to establish a medical school in Haifa: to bring students to Israel from abroad to continue their studies in Beer Sheva and then train them for work in the community. Soroka answered in a letter saying, “I’m glad to receive your letter” - quoting the Sayings of the Sages: “In the place that true repenters stand, the most righteous cannot stand.” 35 Clalit at the time had a medical council that would convene two or three times a year. It was comprised of top figures in Clalit’s medical staff. We invited Prywes to speak about medical education. I knew that several days before the get-together, he had lost the election of a new dean at the Jerusalem medical school to Prof. Aharon Beller who was head of neurosurgery at Hadassah Ein Karem. The contest had a personal edge, but also a clash of philosophies. Prof. Beller’s approach was research-oriented, more clinical and scientific, the approach of the hospital physician, while Prof. Prywes’ approach was broader and more community-oriented. Prywes had lost only by a few votes. At my invitation, we sat down to talk after his lecture. I told him “I’m recommending you to be the first dean of the school of medicine in Beer Sheva which we will establish, working together. He didn’t answer immediately, but said: “I’m leaving tomorrow for three weeks in the United States. I’ll think about the matter. When I return, we’ll talk.” He went abroad, and with his return brought me a plan, saying “If the sick fund accepts my plan, I’m in. If it doesn’t accept it, I have no interest in establishing a school like all the existing schools.” In short, the principles of his plan were the following: A) Medical education wasn’t an entity in and of itself. Rather, it had an objective - medical service. Accordingly, medical education must serve needs for health services. B). In doing so one much combine research and service in medical education. He had a slogan: “Those who serve, teach; those who teach, serve.” C). He proposed that the dean be the director of Clalit’s Negev region. This proposal wasn’t simple from my perspective. While I was a medical director, not an administrative director, it wasn’t easy for me to simply hand over some of Clalit’s regional director’s authorities in the Negev to the university. 36 Prof. Prywes also supported having entrance interviews with applicants for medical school. The objective of the interview was to evaluate whether the applicant’s personality was suitable for their role as a physician. In those days, schools of medicine in Israel accepted applicants solely on their high school grade averages, and their matriculation and psychometric scores for higher education. 37 And indeed, to this day, an interview is part of the acceptance process in the medical school in Beer Sheva. It now has been adopted by other schools, as well. Prof. Prywes also insisted on the idea that health services within the community be at the center of the medical school’s program. He stressed the importance of a high professional level being maintained both in hospitals and in community-based services, a principle that Clalit had always stressed. He coined the concept of the “Beer Sheva Spirit,” an ethos that accompanies BGU’s school of medicine to this day. 38 I can’t swear he is the one who coined the term, but 35 The meaning for persons who have repented is that “their level is greater than the level of those who never sinned before, since they have conquered their evil inclinations more than they.” Chapter 7, Law 4 – Voices in Our Head – Torah.org https://torah.org /learning/mlife lor7-4/ 36 On the managerial structure of Clalit, see the upcoming chapter. 37 The matriculation and psychometric examinations are Israeli “College Board Exams.” 38 The “Beer Sheva Spirit” or “Ruach Beer Sheva” inculcates both a person and community centered approach in students and graduates of Ben-Gurion University’s medical school. Graduates of BGU’s medical school who work elsewhere in Israel are generally considered to be more person-oriented and patient-centered than the graduates of Israel’s other medical schools.

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