BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

founding, Beilinson Hospital has been the flagship hospital of Clalit, and one of Israel’s most important medical institutions. Today Beilinson and Soroka are the main anchors of Clalit’s hospital network. The hospital includes all departments that a leading university hospital must have. 80 Like all Clalit hospitals, much time and effort was devoted to bringing physicians of repute to serve as department heads. But because of its centrality, efforts in this direction were double. I was particularly keen to find a top-notch department head for oncology for two reasons: First of all, the centrality of the hospital to Clalit’s network was not just geographical. No less important was the fact that cancer, not heart disease, was, and is, the greatest cause of death in Israel. I traveled far and wide in search for candidates, with meager success. Once I went to the United States to meet with Dr. Zvi Fuks, an Israeli who studied medicine in Jerusalem and worked for a short period as a senior physician and director of oncology at Hadassah Ein Karem. Afterwards he was appointed director of the oncological radiology department at Sloan Kettering in New York. I conducted negotiations with him and was left with the impression that maybe I could bring him on board. He came to Israel, but it turned out that parallel to negotiating with me about the position at Beilinson, Dr. Fuks was also negotiating with Prof. Moshe Prywes for the same post at Soroka medial center, as well as other options. In the end, he decided to go to Hadassah Ein Karem; and then, after a year or two, he returned to Sloan Kettering. In another case, we lost the head of gynecology at Beilinson, who died very prematurely. We began to seek a replacement. I didn’t find any suitable candidate, but I heard that in South Africa there was a well-known Jewish doctor named Yoel Cohen, who was not only a renowned gynecological surgeon, but also an ardent Zionist. When Dr. Mendel Pollack went to South Africa to encourage Jewish physicians to make aliyah , I asked him to locate Dr. Yoel Cohen and offer him an opportunity to make aliyah as director of gynecology at Beilinson. Dr. Pollack returned and reported that he had spoken to Dr. Cohen, who was taken by surprise but didn’t faint at the offer and had some interest in it. In short, he didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but said he would come to Israel to speak with me. Indeed, he came and we spoke at length. His demands were very high; and I agreed to all of them, since I was very keen to bring him on board. He made aliyah and headed the department at Beilinson until he retired. During the period of Prof. Ciro Servadio’s tenure as director of Beilinson, he came and told me about a renowned physician in organ transplants. He offered to establish such a department at Beilinson. To do so would require a very hefty budget. Nevertheless, I agreed. For years this department operated as one of the most advanced organ transplant facilities in Israel, if not the most advanced. Without doubt, the hardest facet was dealing with issues surrounding management of Beilinson. Clearly anyone picked as director of Beilinson had to be both a great physician and an able administrator. But the individual would also have to be a person for whom the word of the director- general of Clalit was respected and carried weight. Otherwise Beilinson would become ‘a state within a state’. I had appointed Ciro Servadio as head of urology and director of the hospital because of his good performance as chief administrator at the Emek Hospital. After his resignation, I appointed as director, Prof. Andre De Vries, one of the fathers of Israeli medicine. Prof. Andre De Vries, who immigrated from Holland, had been a senior internist at Hadassah Ein Karem. He distinguished himself as both an educator and as a researcher, including developing the anti-venom for the Israeli viper. Together with Chaim Sheba, De Vries had been one of the chief promoters behind establishment of Tel Aviv University, then its medical school. He served as one of Tel Aviv University’s first rectors and was the first dean of the medical school. 80 Beilinson hospital doesn’t have a geriatric department. There is a separate entity called Beit Rivka that has a new building and serves as a regional geriatric hospital.

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