BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

demonstrating this structure’s many advantages. I’m not embarrassed to admit that the Sharon Hospital was my pet project, though not at the expense of any other institution, because I felt it embodied an apt juncture to implement my regional district model. I followed the hospital’s progress closely. Avigdor Kaplan, 84 who took over as director-general of Clalit after I left, had a different approach -- fiscal management. In his mind, on the grounds of economy, all the departments needed to be concentrated at Beilinson, leaving the Sharon Hospital with only a minimum of services. He closed the new regional clinic named for mayor Rashish and merged the Sharon Hospital into the campus of the Rabin Medical Center. I believed that his approach to the Sharon Hospital was a failure because over the following years it became clear that the region needed a regional hospital. Half the departments in Beilinson are not regional hospital departments, but rather national general hospital departments. Therefore, decision-makers should have begun by investing in renovating the Sharon Hospital, rather than drying up its resources. To anyone who visits the Sharon Hospital today, its state of neglect is clearly evident: It is old and badly in need of renovation. I am convinced that over the years, replacements and ad hoc renovations have cost a lot more than the decision-makers figured they were saving in what was viewed as an economy move. Another episode tied to the Sharon Hospital: There was a physician who served successfully as head of surgery for many years with dedication to medical care and no problems. When he was reaching retirement age, suddenly complaints began to surface concerning surgeries he had conducted. When I saw the charges, I didn’t think twice about demanding his resignation as head of surgery department. Years later he wrote a book in which he said that I’d cut his life short. But in my opinion, there is no room to hesitate in circumstances like this. Heads of surgery departments hold the life of their patients in their hands, and when complaints begin to arrive on the quality of the surgery performed, there is no room for indecision. The positions I had the honor of filling didn’t always enable me to preserve friendships that would have come at the price of harm to the health of the public. For me, the public’s health always came first, before personal friendships. Kaplan Hospital in Rechovot In the beginning of this book, I noted that Kaplan Hospital was opened south of Tel Aviv in the city of Rechovot, a few months prior to my making aliyah . It was an impressive complex based on a cluster of separate one-story units for each department; and there were on-site housing accommodations for department heads and senior physicians. Some of the best doctors in the country took senior positions at Kaplan. I will cite a few examples: I’ve already said that Dr. Pinchas Efrati was one of the best medical pedagogues 85 I’ve ever encountered. He was instrumental in affiliating Kaplan Hospital as a university teaching hospital for the Hebrew University’s medical school. This association continues to this day, a relationship that has served as a way of attracting and retaining excellent personnel and a quality enhancer for the hospital. As I noted earlier, between my period as a doctor in Kibbutz Gvar’am and my period practicing medicine in Beer Sheva, I underwent in service training under Prof. Efrati at Kaplan. In addition to his unique bedside instruction techniques, Efrati had a special sense of kinship with primary physicians in the community, particularly those working on the periphery – physicians for whom his knowledge and insights were particularly critical. I remain deeply indebted for the wisdom he shared; and after I completed my work in Beer Sheva and moved to Clalit headquarters, Prof. Efrati 84 Avigdor Kaplan, PhD (1939 - ) has held many important administrative posts in his career. He was appointed director-general of Clalit in 1992 and served in this capacity for five years during the period the sick fund was disengaged from the Labor Federation and the Compulsory National Health Insurance Law was passed that fundamentally changed the health system in Israel. The economic recovery plan Kaplan introduced led to reduction in Clalit’s heavy deficit. From 1997-2013, he was president and CEO at Clal Insurance Pensions & Finance Group, and he then became director-general of Hadassah Hospital (2013-2014). 85 See footnote 6.

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