Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When the Israeli Council for Higher Education charged the fledgling Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba with establishing Israel’s fourth medical school as part of its Faculty of Health Sciences (FOHS) and in collaboration with Clalit Health Services and Soroka-University Medical Center, it differentiated itself from others of its kind.
Their vision half a century ago marked a dramatic diversion from conventional institutions for teaching physicians. To buck the trend toward training specialists who tend to focus on only the “sick” part of the patient, the new medical school presented a program to educate and train doctors with a high level of commitment and sensitivity to the community.
This momentous resolution completed a long campaign led by Beersheba’s then-mayor David Tuviyahu, instrumental in the establishment of both the university and its medical school, which was led by Prof. Haim Doron (director-general of the Clalit health fund) and Prof. Moshe Prywes, BGU’s president and founding dean of the medical school. They aimed at educating a new breed of physicians and healthcare professionals with a more humanistic and holistic approach to their patients.
Today, hospitals in Israel and around the world have adopted the holistic, community-oriented approach for the benefit of their patients, their families, and communities.
SINCE ITS establishment, FOHS has done much to improve health services in the Negev by raising the clinical and academic standards of community clinics, establishing new services, and designing new programs to promote health, prevent diseases, and improve the availability and accessibility of the various services.
The faculty boasts 3,000 enrolled students
FOHS, according to its dean, Prof. Reli Hershkovitz, is dedicated to excellence in the education and training of doctors and medical professionals, as well as in medical research of all kinds. Its mission is to educate medical professionals who consider patients holistically, within their familial, social, and cultural contexts.
“This unique community-centered approach is evident in our screening of applicants based on individual interviews, student involvement in community health projects, and the curricula of our various schools and programs,” she told The Jerusalem Post.
Today, the faculty boasts 3,000 enrolled students – 30% of them studying for graduate degrees and conducting research in the various departments and programs.
FOHS is the umbrella for the Joyce & Irving Goldman Medical School; the School of Public Health; the Medical School for International Health; the Recanati School for Community Health Professions; the School of Bio-Medical research; the School of Medical Laboratory Science; the School for Continuing Medical Education; and the School of Pharmacy.
Hershkovitz received her medical degree in 1999, after which she completed a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology. She has a special interest in the use of ultrasound on women. Today, she heads one of Soroka’s two ob-gyn departments and lives with her family in nearby Omer.
She is proud of the various schools suited to “the unique spirit of Beersheba, where the patient is at the center and it has become a role model by noting the personal, cultural, communal, and religious characteristics, as they affect patients’ physical and mental conditions,” she said.
“We don’t force students to get involved in the community, but most of them do as volunteers. There is a “youth investigator” program at Soroka in which high school students do work that gives them matriculation points. It’s a win-win situation.” While most medical school students are from middle-class and wealthier families, the share is less than half at BGU.” Another change from 1974 is that women constitute 70% of first-year medical students; men tend to go into engineering, business, and other fields.
In any case, women – both religious and secular – tend to prefer female ob–gyns over males.
The medical school encourages students to take part in the development and evaluation of the teaching experience. These special relations between the school and the students contribute not only to changes in the curriculum but also to increased involvement of faculty and students in the community, she explained.
Hershkovitz predicted that in a decade from now, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used as a regular tool to improve diagnosis and treatment. “It won’t replace doctors, who will have more time to offer compassion, a shoulder to lean on, and time to pay more attention to the sick. Telemedicine for follow-up is not new, but it will continue to be used widely.
BGU’S MEDICAL STUDENTS Association (ASRAN) has encouraged members to initiate innovative programs, some of which have recently become integrated into the curriculum. These include the prevention of sexual violence among youth; decreasing in small children the fear of doctors in white coats; the creation of the Teddy Bear hospital for “treating” their stuffed animals; and participation in home-hospice activities.
By encouraging students to become equal partners in faculty development and rejecting the traditional paternalistic mode of teacher-student relationships, the faculty has created an improved learning experience. It has also increased student motivation and levels of communication between the teachers and the future clinicians, said Noa Bechar, who is now graduating as an MD after heading ASRAN.
Born in Modi’in, Bechar decided at age five to become a physician like her father, who studied medicine in Beersheba and headed a hospital department. She hopes to specialize in radiology.
“We visit kindergartens to talk about improving health and give private courses for kids in English, math, and other subjects at a very low price,” she said, adding that she is pleased that many medical school graduates decide to continue living and working in the South.
Associate Prof. Lior Fuchs, who graduated from the medical school in 2006, served in the IDF, worked at Soroka, and completed a fellowship in critical care at Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard University in Boston.
He specializes in Point-of-Care Ultrasounds (POCUS). “Standing at the bedside while taking care of a patient is like solving a puzzle. We have to put the pieces together. New technology allows us to look into the heart to see if there is fluid or if air is trapped around the lungs. We have become much more competent with smaller devices – even just smartphones – in place of big machines that had to be dragged around. We have created the largest POCUS school in the country,” Fuchs said.
The heterogeneous communities in the Negev – with Jews from Russia and Ethiopia, religious and secular, and Bedouins, who continue to have genetic diseases due to consanguinity (the result of marriages among first cousins) make treating them challenging.
“Medical students rotate in the health funds’ community clinics from their very first year. I am involved in improving the curriculum to teach stages of life, from birth to the end of life. In the coming years, we must do more to encourage doctors to conduct independent research and use AI.”
Prof. Amos Katz, a senior cardiologist and an expert in the electrophysiology of the heart (evaluating the heart’s electrical system and checking for abnormal heart rhythms), served during the Yom Kippur War but decided to become a doctor instead of an IDF officer. He applied to all four medical schools in the country. The first one to accept him was at BGU, followed by the other three.
“We had 32 students then. I decided to stay because of its [BGU] approach towards the community. I was a member of the first graduating class; we continue to meet on Independence Day. Today, there are 200 [of us].” He has held senior positions at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and elsewhere.
“I hope that in 10 years, BGU’s medical school will continue to have close contact with the patient. There will be more simulation, use of robots, fewer frontal lectures, and more independent study. Students won’t have to learn everything by heart; instead, they will focus on actual case studies,” he concluded.