Ramat Gan, Israel -
Key to Israel’s strategy to upgrade healthcare in the Galilee
Israel’s anticipated shortage of doctors in the next two years, as noted by a blue-ribbon governmental commission, hastened the creation of Bar-Ilan University’s Medical School — the country’s first new medical school in nearly 40 years.
Bar-Ilan Medical School students are improving healthcare services in six Galilee hospitals. Here, they are making rounds in the Western Galilee Hospital.
Photo courtesy of Western Galilee Medical Center’s International Liaison.
Now beginning its third year of operation in Safed, the School is moving swiftly to upgrade medical facilities in the North. It is partnering with six Galilee hospitals, which have made 75 staff appointments (including 52 MDs) while providing hospital-based clinical training to 412 students since the School’s opening.
The School’s achievements validate why the Israeli government chose Bar-Ilan to create the Faculty of Medicine.
The government cited Bar-Ilan’s vision of creating a Medical Research Institute that will be built along the lines of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States.
According to Prof. Ran Tur-Kaspa, Medical School Dean, the School has quickly embarked upon an innovative approach of disease-targeted research which will provide realistic and practicable solutions to specific human illness.
In choosing Bar-Ilan for this project, the government also cited the University’s underlying ideological mission to strengthen and enrich Israeli society and reach out to the disadvantaged in Israel’s periphery.
Praising this initiative, Dr. Masad Barhoum, Director General of the Western Galilee Hospital, said,
“Social justice means the right to equal healthcare at a high level, regardless of where you live.”
