Faculty of Medicine Newsletter 63 (June 2022) | The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine

PDF for easier reading here.

White Coat Ceremony

Congratulations to the 75 four-year track Azrieli Faculty of Medicine MD students who received their White Coats on June 1, 2022. This is the tenth cohort. Read more here, and see pictures here. We wish them success with their clinical rounds, which commenced immediately.

Thank You, Clinical Lecturers

As every year, this is the season to give thanks to our dedicated clinical lecturers (among others!). Ceremonies were held so far at the Ziv Medical Center and the Galilee Medical Center. Read more here. Thank you; your dedication is appreciated!

Conferences

A Day of Research dedicated to the memory of Prof. Shaul Shasha (former director of the Galilee Medical Center) was held at GMC in Naharia on June 2, 2022. Read more (in Hebrew) on the GMC website, here.
The 22^nd Naharia Conference on Medicine and the Holocaust was held on May 11, 2022 at the Galilee Medical Center. This conference was also dedicated to the memory of Prof. Shasha. Read more (in Hebrew) on the GMC website, here.
Dr. Hanna Keren (to right) was invited to speak at the 78^th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, where she also received an early career investigator travel fellowship award.
Dr. Hava Gil Henn, Dr. Hanna Keren, Dr. Ronit Ilouz, Dr. Liron Rozenkrantz, and Prof. Evan Elliott presented at a conference on May 30, 2022 hosted by Bar-Ilan U’s Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center in Ramat Gan. Read more here.
UPCOMING: The 4^th International Congress on Molecular Targeting Therapy and Immunotherapy of Cancer (July 27-30, 2022).

Events and Visits

The Nazareth Hospital EMMS (an Azrieli affiliate hospital) Fertility and IVF Unit launch took place at a festive event on June 16, 2022.
German Israeli Foundation director, Dr. Eric Zimmerman, visited the Azrieli Faculty on May 29, 2022. He met with Faculty management and researchers.
Some 40 lab managers from Bar-Ilan U. were hosted by the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine on June 23, 2022 for a special conference. They met with Faculty management and researchers, toured the facilities, and were even given a glimpse of the Anatomage table (to right). Read more here.

Promotions

Congratulations to Dr. Ayelet Shai on her promotion to Senior Clinical Lecturer.

Awards and Prizes

Congratulations to Dr. Ronit Ilouz (to right) upon being awarded the ICRF research career development award.
Congratulations to Prof. Meital Gal-Tanami, Dr. Fadi Hassan, and Dr. Zaid abu Zaid upon receipt of the BIU Vice Rector’s Outstanding Teacher Award. Ceremony was held on May 30, 2022.
Congratulations to Tal Avitan, a masters degree student from Prof. Orly Avni's lab, and Wisal Sawaed, a PhD student from Dr. Ron Piran's lab upon receipt of the Rector’s Prize (Honor Roll).

Seminars

Special Seminar: Trauma, Illness and Narrative in the Medical Humanities: The Case of Combat Veterans (Dr. Rakefet Zalashik, TAU, hosted by Dr. Miri Bentwich)
PhD Seminar: A role for neuronal chromatin organizer CTCF in neurons (Liron Davis, supervised by Prof. Evan Elliott)
Special Seminar: Motherhood in Surrogacy and Egg Donation: Legal, Religious, and Bioethical Perspectives (Prof. Avishalom Westreich, College of Law and Business, Ramat Gan; Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, hosted by Dr. Miri Bentwich)
Special Seminar: Advanced in vitro systems to model physiology and disease (Dr. Moran Yadid Shmunis, School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Faculty of Life Science, Tel Aviv University, hosted by Dr. Ron Piran)
Faculty Seminar: The phagocytic cyst cells in Drosophila testis eliminate germ cell progenitors via phagoptosis (Prof. Hila Toledano, Haifa University)
Special Seminar: Can empathy be learned? Unpacking the challenge and promise in growing interpersonal understanding (Dr. Jacob Israelshvili, HUJI, Dept. of Psychology, hosted by Dr. Liron Rozenkrantz)
Special Seminar: Studying the Healthy and Diseased Brain at Biologically Relevant Resolutions (Dr. Or Shemesh, Department of Neurobiology, Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, hosted by Prof. Amnon Harel)
PhD Seminar: Application of bioinformatics and computational drug discovery to screen FDA approved drug for repurposing in Cancer and Alzheimer's disease (Trishna Saha Detroja supervised by Dr. Avraham Samson and Dr. Hava Gil-Henn)

JIMS – The Journal of Israeli Medical Students

Second issue has been published. Access online here.

Student Life

Congratulations to the new Student Union heads: Dor Ezon and Inbar Yorish-Zur. Dor is a 29 year old second year student. He and his wife Ina are studying medicine together. Inbar is a 30 year old second year student. She and her husband Omry are also studying medicine together!
After attending the launch of the new Dialysis Department at the Nazareth Hospital EMMS, Prof. Karl Skorecki paid a surprise visit to second year students who had just begun the clinical stage of their studies at EMMS. After warmly greeting them, he received student feedback of their clinical experiences so far. Pictured also is Prof. Bashara Basharat, former director of the hospital who had just given the students a lesson on preventative medicine.

Insights from our Instructors

A few of our instructors reached out, wishing to share from their experiences teaching our medical students. We hope you will find their insights and pictures enlightening.

Dr. Amitai Oberman (Head of Geriatric Rehabilitation Department, Baruch Padeh Medical Center, Poriya):

As part of a clinical round in the Department of Geriatric Rehabilitation at Poriya with the aim to expose students to therapeutic challenges on the one hand but also to the beauty of old age on the other, each student receives one patient, admits him or her in an orderly fashion, then monitors the patient’s progress during hospitalization. Students are required to become acquainted with not only the patient’s medical problems but also the full patient, his or her strengths and weaknesses, and what strengths and abilities enable the older patient to maintain a high quality of life and as healthy a lifestyle as possible. In a round held last week, students met with an 86-year-old elderly patient who was hospitalized in the rehabilitation ward after surgical repair of a hip fracture. From a conversation with him we learned that he has been practicing and teaching Tai Chi for many years. We asked him to do a demonstration class for the students (pictured below).

Dr. Nomy Dickman (head of the unit for Development and Evaluation of Education):

TBL-Team Based Learning allows learning among small groups in the classroom. It was developed by Dr. Larry K. Michaelsen in the 1970s and develops critical thinking and teamwork skills. In the YaKaR (Basic Clinical Principles) course for the four-year track students which was held in April-May 2022, a number of lessons using this method were used by the lecturers Dr. Bathish Younes, Dr. Simsolo Claudia, and Dr.Israel Zeev. The lessons were prepared with my help, with thanks to the course coordinator, Dr. Dally Najib and assistant Lilach Zelik. For the students it was an innovative and refreshing experience, arriving to class ahead of time with an understanding and knowledge of the topic being studied, then working together in class and being tested in small groups. The method helped them to assimilate the material more effectively than in the conventional method, contributing to their understanding of the various topics. Pictured below: Dr. Bathish, Dr. Dickman, and Dr. Najib with students.

Dr. Michael De Vries, MRCGP (family and hospice/palliative care physician):

How do you become a really good doctor? This not only requires medical knowledge, but a whole range of skills. During the unique 2-year HILA course we teach our students how to really listen to their patients. To meet them eye to eye. With the help of specially trained actors we teach them to take a patient’s history, with emphasis on compassion and empathy. How do you alleviate anxiety? How do you respect the privacy of your patient? How do you deliver bad news to a patient? How do you raise the subject of death? We teach them how to examine a patient, how to establish a likely diagnosis and we teach them a range of skills from interpreting a chest x-ray to wound closure and putting up a drip. We’re a team of highly motivated doctors with different specialties, who, during these two years, stay with the same group of students and invest half a day a week, sometimes more, to teach them and to be an example for them. In this way we hope to contribute to a new generation of outstanding physicians in Israel. [Picture credit Dr. de Vries]

De Vries

Meet Our Doctors

This month we would like to introduce you to Dr. Said Abozaid, head of the pediatrics division at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine and head of pediatrics at the Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Poria. He writes:

I was born in Eilabun in 1961 and continue to live there, married with four children, one of whom continued the medical tradition. I have two grandchildren. I love Eilabun and the north in general; no wonder everyone goes up north on the weekends to enjoy the nature and atmosphere we enjoy every day.

I studied in the village and graduated medicine from the Technion in 1986. I did internship in pediatrics at Poria Hospital and have since then climbed the ladder to director of the department in 2013. I have seen dozens of interns and specialists pass through our doors, some of whom who have reached a very high status.

Since I took over as director of pediatrics, we have become active partners in the education and training of dozens of students from Azrieli. Bar-Ilan University has even awarded me personally as well as our department.

There is no doubt that the combination of my medical practice with education gives me immense satisfaction. I see the fruits of my labor in caring for patients as well as the scientific and clinical development of our students and interns.

I firmly believe that the opening of the Faculty about a decade ago has changed quite a bit in the general clinical and academic activities in the hospitals affiliated to it, the involvement of physicians in education, and study and research has greatly increased. I hope we will also see the fruits of the Faculty's activity in the Galilee, attracting our graduates to settle in the area: staying in the north is a victory for both sides, you [students] and the hospitals. Hospitals will invest in all students with the desire to advance and develop the area until we have comparable medicine to that of the Center. The North invites us to enjoy a good quality of life, with less stress than other areas in the country.

Despite everything we still lack resources for the various hospitals and wards in the northern region, and this requires a lot of investment from the responsible parties. And I have no doubt that by combining remote medicine, using digital means, shortening distances by using new technologies - that this will lead to blurring the gaps between parts of the country.

Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE

Keep abreast of SPHERE activities on their Facebook page, here.

You'll read up about their many activities and accomplishments such as:

SPHERE coordinators at the local municipalities (Nazareth, Nof Hagalil, Shefa'amer, Sakhnin, Safed) are interviewing officials to map the infrastructure and status regarding health promotion.
The Doctors Forum has convened twice. The meeting was attended by 13 GPs from Clalit, Maccabi, and Meuhedet HMOs who are taking part in a special 2-year training course aiming to enrich their knowledge of diabetes and give them tools to treat and serve the public. Led by Dr. Elias Srur, a family physician and diabetes specialist, participants enjoyed lectures by Prof. Naim Shehadeh, Director of SPHERE, who discussed treatment with SGLT2 inhibitors in diabetics, and Dr. Doron Sagi, Director of the SPHERE Educational Center Project, who discussed the importance of community research and future research planning.
May 11, 2022: Official launch of a training project for 50 Clalit and Maccabi medical professionals (family medicine, nursing, nutrition, and social work) in Nazareth to help facilitate early detection of prediabetes. The project seeks to reduce the transition from prediabetes to diabetes by 50% while promoting healthy lifestyle changes.
May 31, 2022: SPHERE and Shefa'amer Municipality sign Cooperation Agreement (picture to right).
June 7-8, 2022: Dr. Sivan Spitzer, Martin Duifhuizen, and Tali Lang (SPHERE postdoc), took part in "Code of Israel" Israeli high-tech volunteer movement. Goal is to build a digital tool that will help make services that support a healthy lifestyle accessible.
June 14, 2022: SPHERE and Sakhnin Municipality sign Cooperation Agreement.
June 15, 2022: Dr. Sivan Spitzer took part in an online event organized in collaboration with HealthIL, intended to highlight the challenges of Health Equity and introduce technological solutions (startups) that can address the challenges.

Azrieli Alumni Please Note

Please help us spread the word to Azrieli alumni that we want to keep in touch! We want to hear from them. Go to our “Request for Information” page, here.

Website: What’s New?

Publications

Reminder that publications by Azrieli faculty are generally posted in chronological order based on publication date, per PubMed listings. If you have published an article recently that appears on PubMed but that was not listed in a Newsletter, I apologize, and please do let me know.

PLEASE NOTE: ALL PUBLICATIONS BY RESEARCHERS AT AZRIELI OR ITS AFFILIATE RESEARCH CENTERS MUST PROPERLY CITE THIS AFFILIATION: Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, Safed, Israel. IF YOU ARE UNSURE OR NEED GUIDANCE, PLEASE CONTACT US..

Khalaf Kridin: The association of six autoimmune bullous diseases with thyroid disorders: A population-based study (J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol .)
Shaul Atar: Peripheral Arterial Disease in Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome: Results From a Large Real-World Registry (Heart Lung Circ .)
Khalaf Kridin, Keren Lyakhovitsky, Erez Onn: Investigating the epidemiological relationship between vitiligo and psoriasis: a population-based study (Arch Dermatol Res .)
M Grinberg, R Levin, H Neuman, O Ziv, S Turjeman, Gila Gamliel, R Nosenko, O Koren: Antibiotics increase aggression behavior and aggression-related pheromones and receptors in Drosophila melanogaster (iScience . )
Omry Koren: Ontogeny of the B Cell Receptor Repertoire and Microbiome in Mice (J Immunol .)
Nir Qvit: How Similar Are Proteins and Origami? (Biomolecules . )
Amir Mari: Advances on Neurogastroenterology and Motility Disorders: Pathophysiology, Diagnostics and Management (J Clin Med .)
Chaim Putterman: Choroid plexus-infiltrating T cells drive murine neuropsychiatric lupus (Arthritis Rheumatol .)
Avi Benov: Remote Damage Control Resuscitation: A Case Report of Hemorrhagic Shock Secondary to Multiple Gunshot Wounds (Mil Med . )
Ala Aiob, Karina Naskovica, Inna Amdur Zilberfarb, Avishalom Sharon, Jacob Bornstein, Lior Lowenstein: Changes in diagnostic sensitivity, incidence and presentation of complete and partial hydatidiform mole over the years (Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
Edo Y Birati: Sex Differences in Left Ventricular Assist Device-related Emergency Department Encounters in the United States (J Card Fail . )
George Habib: Effect of intramuscular depot betamethasone injection in patients with fibromyalgia and elevated C-reactive protein levels J Investig Med . )
Rola Khamisy-Farah: Attaching a stigma to the LGBTQI+ community should be avoided during the monkeypox epidemic (J Med Virol .)
Boris Fichtman, Haneen Jabaly-Habib, Lee S Izhaki-Tavor, Moshe Dessau: A Novel Homozygous Missense Variant in the LRRC32 Gene Is Associated With a New Syndrome of Cleft Palate, Progressive Vitreoretinopathy, Growth Retardation, and Developmental Delay (Front Pediatr . )
Ran Tur-Kaspa: Longitudinal kinetics of RBD+ antibodies in COVID-19 recovered patients over 14 months (PLoS Pathog .)
Hanan Rohana, Avi Peretz: High throughput optical modulation biosensing for highly sensitive and rapid detection of biomarkers (Talanta .)
Andrei Braester: Enoxaparin versus dalteparin or tinzaparin in patients with cancer and venous thromboembolism: The RIETECAT study (Res Pract Thromb Haemost . )
Anton Ouryvaev, Anca Leibovici, Luiza Akria, Dimitry Goncharov, Neomi Mativ, Avia Kauffman, Ayelet Shai: The Effectiveness and Safety of Medical Cannabis for Treating Cancer Related Symptoms in Oncology Patients (Front Pain Res (Lausanne) .)
Evgeni Kukuev, Evgeny Belugin, Dafna Willner, Ohad Ronen: Parameters of high-frequency jet ventilation using a mechanical lung model (J Med Eng Technol .)
Limor Meoded Danon: Temporal sociomedical approaches to intersex* bodies (Hist Philos Life Sci .)
Nasser Sakran: Chyloperitoneum and Chylothorax Following Bariatric Surgery: a Systematic Review (Obes Surg .)
David Karasik: General and abdominal obesity operate differently as influencing factors of fracture risk in old adults (iScience . )
Shulamit Fluss Ben-Uliel, Faten Habrat Zoabi, Hadas Sibony-Benyamini, Nir Qvit: De Novo Development of Mitochondria-Targeted Molecular Probes Targeting Pink1 (Int J Mol Sci .)
Ortal Calfon-Peretz, Rachel Weitzman, Abraham O Samson: Reply to van der Pluijm et al. Comment on "Weitzman et al. Resistance to Antimalarial Monotherapy Is Cyclic. J. Clin. Med. 2022, 11, 781" (J Clin Med . )
Edo Y Birati: Predicting, Recognizing, and Treating Right Heart Failure in Patients Undergoing Durable LVAD Therapy (J Clin Med .)
Amir Mari, Aiman Gahshan, Helal Saied Ahmad, Tawfik Khoury: Comparison in Adherence to Treatment between Patients with Mild-Moderate and Severe Reflux Esophagitis: A Prospective Study (J Clin Med . )
Rola Khamisy-Farah: Epidemiological trends and clinical features of the ongoing monkeypox epidemic: a preliminary pooled data analysis and literature review (J Med Virol .)
Elon Glassberg: Does cognitive loading interfere with walking control? (Gait Posture .)
Moayad Khatib, Orna Nitzan, Soboh Soboh, Avi Peretz, Evgeni Hazanov, Wadia Kinany, Yusra Halahla, Liza Grosman-Rimon, Offer Amir, Shemy Carasso: Unmasking Myocardial Dysfunction in Patients Hospitalized for Community-Acquired Pneumonia Using a 4-Chamber 3-Dimensional Volume/Strain Analysis (J Digit Imaging . )
Daniel Oren, Fares Kablan, Samer Srouji: Foot-Controlled Irrigation System in Temporomandibular Arthroscopy: Technical Note (J Maxillofac Oral Surg . )
Keren Agay-Shay: Obesity II: Establishing Causal Links Between Chemical Exposures and Obesity (Biochem Pharmacol . )
Keren Agay-Shay: Corrigendum to "Obesity II: Establishing causal links between chemical exposures and obesity" [Biochem. Pharmacol. 199 (2022) 115015] (Biochem Pharmacol . )
Jacob Bornstein: consensus statements on pre-invasive vulvar lesions (Int J Gynecol Cancer .))
Bayan Hino: The variable response to Teduglutide in pediatric short bowel syndrome: a single country real-life experience (J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr .)
Zaina Adnan: Subclinical acromegaly: to treat or not to treat? (Endocr J .)
Abraham O Samson: Norethisterone Reduces Vaginal Bleeding Caused by Progesterone-Only Birth Control Pills (J Clin Med .)

Faculty News

Faculty Press Exposure

TimesOfIsrael.com: As more COVID rules axed, Israel in stable state, but not yet at endemic stage (Prof. Michael Edelstein)

Image Gallery

Four-Year Track White Coat Ceremony (June 2022)