I'll be here awhile – in Jerusalem – helping, teaching, operating...
A colleague once told me that a brain surgeon's life is never boring and can be profoundly rewarding, but it comes at a price. You will inevitably make mistakes, you must learn to be objective about what you see, and yet not lose your humanity in the process.
I attempt to find a balance between the necessary detachment and compassion that a surgical career requires, a balance between hope and realism. Thus, I hope my presence here will help doctors and students understand the difficulties – so often of a human rather than technical nature – that they will face in their profession.
 |
| Hadassah Medical Center (מרכז רפואי הדסה) |
The hospital was founded by Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which continues to underwrite a large part of its budget today. The Medical Center ranks as the sixth-largest hospital complex in Israel. Across its two campuses, Hadassah Medical Center has a total of 1,000 beds, 31 operating theaters and nine special intensive care units, and runs five schools of medical professions.
Chagall windows
The Ein Karem campus synagogue is illuminated by stained glass windows depicting the twelve tribes of Israel, created by Marc Chagall. Chagall envisaged the synagogue as "a crown offered to the Jewish Queen," and the windows as "jewels of translucent fire. The windows were installed February 1962. At the dedication ceremony, Chagall said: "A stained glass window is a transparent partition between my heart and the heart of the world...To read the Bible is to perceive a certain light, and the window has to make this obvious through its simplicity and grace... The thoughts have nested in me for many years, since the time when my feet walked on the Holy Land, when I prepared myself to create engravings of the Bible. They strengthened me and encouraged me to bring my modest gift to the Jewish people, that people that lived here thousands of years ago.
HADASSAH - JERUSALEM MEDICAL CENTER
For nearly 100 years, Hadassah Medical Center has been a leader in medicine and nursing in Israel, laying the foundation and setting the standards for the country's modern health care system. Hadassah has developed Israel's community health services, established the first modern hospital and medical and nursing schools, and set the climate for medical research in Israel.
The majority of medical breakthroughs in Israel have taken place at Hadassah. The first successful heart transplant was performed at Hadassah – as was the first robotic surgery and the world's First Computer-Assisted Hip Replacement Surgery.
Today, Hadassah is known for instituting and implementing "The Medicine of Tomorrow" - incorporating advanced solutions with personalized treatment.
The Hadassah University Hospital-Ein Kerem
This 800-bed tertiary care hospital treats virtually every conceivable aspect of modern medicine and serves as a national referral center for complex and challenging medical cases. With over 130 departments and clinics, Hadassah Ein Kerem provides Israel's most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic services for the local and national population and a significant number of international patients.
Opened in 1961, the extensive campus of the Hadassah University Hospital-Ein Kerem has over 28 buildings, with specialty services in the Sharett Institute of Oncology, Department of Hematology and Sidney Weiser Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cancer Immunobiology; the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother and Child Center; the Judy and Sidney Swartz Center for Emergency Medicine which houses Jerusalem's only Level 1-A Trauma Unit, and the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower, a 19-story inpatient facility.
Some departments, such as the Department of Neurosurgery, are the only facilities of their kind in the Jerusalem area; other specialty centers, such as the Patricia and Russell Fleischman Center for Women's Health and the Marlene Greenebaum Multidisciplinary Breast Center, the Center for Brain Diseases and the Heart Institute are unique in Israel.
The outstanding research facilities include the Hadassah Clinical Research Center, the Goldyne Savad Institute for Gene Therapy, the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center, Israel's only hospital-based cyclotron, and a world class GMP laboratory.
Hadassah University Medical Center is Israel's only academic medical institution that combines teaching and training on one campus. Together with the Hebrew University, Hadassah provides outstanding education and clinical experience through its schools of medicine, nursing, dental medicine, public health and occupational therapy and enjoys a synergistic relationship in many aspects of medical research, among them Hadassah Medical Center-Hebrew University Biotechnology Park.
Today, Hadassah is known for instituting and implementing "The Medicine of Tomorrow" - incorporating advanced solutions with personalized treatment.
This 800-bed tertiary care hospital treats virtually every conceivable aspect of modern medicine and serves as a national referral center for complex and challenging medical cases. With over 130 departments and clinics, Hadassah Ein Kerem provides Israel's most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic services for the local and national population and a significant number of international patients.
Some departments, such as the Department of Neurosurgery, are the only facilities of their kind in the Jerusalem area; other specialty centers, such as the Patricia and Russell Fleischman Center for Women's Health and the Marlene Greenebaum Multidisciplinary Breast Center, the Center for Brain Diseases and the Heart Institute are unique in Israel.
The outstanding research facilities include the Hadassah Clinical Research Center, the Goldyne Savad Institute for Gene Therapy, the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center, Israel's only hospital-based cyclotron, and a world class GMP laboratory.
Hadassah University Medical Center is Israel's only academic medical institution that combines teaching and training on one campus. Together with the Hebrew University, Hadassah provides outstanding education and clinical experience through its schools of medicine, nursing, dental medicine, public health and occupational therapy and enjoys a synergistic relationship in many aspects of medical research, among them Hadassah Medical Center-Hebrew University Biotechnology Park.
Hadassah University Hospital-Mt. Scopus
This 350-bed community hospital serves the heavily populated Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of northern and eastern Jerusalem, with over 30 departments and clinics.
Between them, the two hospitals have more than 1,000 beds, 31 operating theaters and nine intensive care units. There are six schools for health professionals, operated jointly with Hebrew University. The 19-story Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower, completed in 2012 and costing $363 million, added 500 more beds and 20 operating rooms. By its own estimate, Hadassah Medical Center treats approximately one million patients a year. It employs 6,000 medical professionals and support staff, some of them part-time. According to the center’s website, there are 800 doctors in its employ. More than half – 488, to be exact – provide private treatment.
