Faculty of Medicine Newsletter 64 (July 2022)

PDF for easier reading here.

MD graduation - Dror Miller photog

Congratulations to 105 new MD doctors in the State of Israel who graduated from the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, on July 4, 2022.

Read more in the local press, the main Bar-Ilan U. website, and the Azrieli Faculty website. A few pictures of the event can be viewed here.

Ilanot Kick-Off Event

We reported in the past about the Ilanot Medical Leadership Program of the Israeli Ministry of Health, aimed towards shaping the future medical and health leadership in Israel. A festive opening event took place at the Faculty on July 14, 2022 in the presence of local dignitaries. We look forward to welcoming the 20-30 incoming medical student Ilanot cadets who have been chosen to participate in this important initiative.

Education: What’s New

Prof. Johnny Younis, Vice Dean Clinical Education, has shared with us that the educational management has decided, along with Dr. David Rotem, to add the orthopedic department at the Holy Family Hospital in Nazareth, under the management of Dr. Marwan Haddad, to the orthopedic departments affiliated to the Faculty. Dr. Haddad has extensive training experience. The students in their clinical years have a two-week round in orthopedic medicine.
The Student Leader’s Wellness Team of the Healthy Faculty initiative, led by Dr. Jumanah Essa-Hadad and Dr. Lilach Malatskey, closed the 2021-2022 academic year activities with several events, including a final active break on June 22, 2022 which involved traditional Arab dabkeh (dancing) and healthy snacks, a unique event (organized in partnership with the organization Natal) in which a well-known musician, Gilad Vital, the soloist from “Shotei Hanevuah,” shared his experience with PTSD, and a mental health media campaign. These are just a few of the activities the student group organized throughout the year as part of their requirements for the course MaHaR (Hebrew acronym for Social Responsibility in Medicine).

Alumni News

Dr. Arie Jaffe (to right) was recently interviewed as an “Influential Alumnus” of Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Jaffe is from the first three-year track graduating class at Azrieli and specializes in OB-GYN. He is now off to King’s College in London to study in utero prenatal surgery. He mentioned that the active community life he experience in Safed was similar to that experienced at colleges abroad, “I made friends for life.” You can find the original post in Hebrew, here.
Prof. Omry Koren, an Azrieli researcher who specializes in the microbiome, was invited to give a Zoom lecture to BIU graduates. The title of his July 25, 2022 presentation was “Humanity is a passing episode in the life of bacteria.”

Conferences and Commissions

Prof. Eric Shinwell, Associate Dean Medical Education, was invited to speak at the 2022 meeting of the International Perinatal Collegium, an elite club within neonatology worldwide. The meeting was held in Rekjavik, Iceland, on June 27-30, 2022. Prof. Shinwell spoke about “Duration of skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth on breastfeeding quality and duration.”
Dr. Avi Peretz , head of the Research Institute at the Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Poria (pictured to right) and his students participated in the 14th International Workshop on Pathogenesis and Host Response in Helicobacter Infections that took place in Helsingør, Denmark June 29- July 2 20,22. They presented on "Characteristics of Helicobacter pylori Virulence Markers in Adult Populations in Northern Israel, and Their Impact on Clinical Outcomes."
Prof. Michael Edelstein, head of the Research Institute at Ziv Medical Center, is taking part in a high profile project called the Commission for Universal Health led by Chatham House in London. The aim of the Commission, a 2-year project bringing together leaders from the worlds of health, economics, and politics across the public and private sectors and civil society, is to identify opportunities for universal health reforms, build awareness of the findings among governments and multilateral organizations, and develop clear policy options to address coverage shortfalls, strengthen health systems, and accelerate progress towards universal health. The chairs of the committee are Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand, and Jakaya Kikwete, former president of Tanzania.
At the annual conference of the WONCA Europe association of family doctors at the beginning of July 2022 in London, Dr. Lilach Malatskey, Vice Dean Community Education (to right), presented a poster, lectured on methods for developing lifestyle medicine teaching, and presented to the management a proposal to establish an interest group on lifestyle medicine, which was approved.
Upcoming Conference (July 27-30, 2022): The 4^th International Congress on Molecular Targeting Therapy and Immunotherapy of Cancer (Prof. Jamal Zidan)
Upcoming Workshop (July 27-29, 2022): Post-Genome Analysis for Musculoskeletal Biology (Prof. David Karasik)

Awards and Prizes

Congratulations to Dr. Shai Bel upon receipt of a BSF grant.
Congratulations to Dr. Ron Orbach upon his receipt of the EMBO New Venture Fellowship
Congratulations to Gal Reches and Yara Hamshawi (Dr. Ron Piran) upon their receipt of a Bar-Ilan U. travel stipend abroad.

Appointments and Promotions

Congratulations to Dr. Inshirah Sgayer Shannan upon her appointment as clinical lecturer.

Seminars

Special Seminar: Artificial Intelligence in Suicide Prevention (Dr. Yaakov Ophir, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, hosted by Dr. Liron Rozenkrantz)
PhD Seminar: New Approaches to Study Chromatin Organization in Yeast (Katreena Yamin supervised by Prof. Itay Onn)
PhD Seminar: The Role of iASPP in the Regulation of the Inflammatory Process (Daniel Baumel supervised by Prof. Orly Avni)
Special Seminar: Technology for Cardiovascular Health (Dr. Liza Grossman-Rimon, School of Graduate Studies, The Academic College at Wingate, Wingate Institute. Digital Health Research, Humber River Hospital, Toronto, Canada, hosted by Prof. Raymond Farah)
Special Seminar: Medical Authority and Public Resistance: Postmortem Examinations in Israel, 1950s-1980s (Dr. Benny Nurieli, HUJI, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, hosted by Dr. Limor Meoded-Danon)
Upcoming PhD Seminar: Cancer Incidence in a National Scale Registry Based Cohort in Israelduring 1995-2015 Spatial Analysis and the Associations with Air Pollution and Greenness (Inass Tarabeia supervised by Dr. Keren Agay-Shay)

Congratulations

Congratulations to Prof. Karl Skorecki on the birth of a granddaughter.

Condolences

Condolences to the family and students of Dr. Amir Kuperman on his passing.

.Condolences to Dr. Yousef Awni upon the passing of his brother

Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE

SPHERE Facebook page here.

The latest:

Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE and the Nazareth Municipality Signed an Agreement of Cooperation on July 26, 2022. The agreement was signed at a ceremony held at the Nazareth Municipality, hosted by the Mayor of Nazareth, Mr. Ali Sallam. In attendance were senior representatives of SPHERE and the Municipality as well as health leaders of the region from the Ministry of Health, Nazareth hospitals, HMOS and NGOs. (Pictured to right)
As part of a joint research grant from the Israeli Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Science of Taiwan, the co-researchers from Taiwan, Profץ Thomas Chou, an expert in bioinformatics, and Prof. Soumya Ray, an expert in information systems, visited Israel. The joint research examines how over time it is possible to increase the coherence in treatment of patients by the use of an application as an integral part of the management of their chronic disease. The Israeli research partners include Prof. David Swartz from Bar-Ilan University's School of Business Administration, Dr. Sivan Spitzer, researcher at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine and Deputy Director of the Russell Berry Galilee Diabetes SPHERE, Dr. Michael Chelmsky from Hadassah Academic College and Dr. Rizan Sakhnini, North District Medical Director, Maccabi Health Services and a member of the leading team of the SPHERE. As part of their visit to Israel, the team of researchers visited the online diabetes institute of Maccabi Health Services to learn about the primary medical system in Israel and the challenges in accompanying diabetic patients in the geographical social periphery. The researchers continued to visit the Galilee Medical Center and met with Dr. Zvi Sheleg, Deputy Director of the Galilee Medical Center to hear about the hospital's innovation system. (Pictured to right)
Prof. Naim Shehadeh, director of SPHERE and director of the Institute of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Rambam Hospital as well as president of the Israeli Diabetes Association, participated in the expert panel of the "Yediot Ahronoth (YNET)" health conference. Prof. Shehadeh spoke about the challenges of diabetes in Israel in general and in the periphery in particular.

Meet Our Doctors

This month we would like to introduce you to Prof. Edo Birati, Chief, Cardiovascular Division, Padeh-Poriya Medical Center.

Prof. Edo Birati has served as the Director of the Cardiovascular Division at the Padeh-Poria Medical Center since November 2020. Prof. Birati is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, a specialist in internal medicine and cardiology, and a graduate of a Fellowship in advanced heart failure at the University of Pennsylvania heart unit. Prof. Birati worked as a senior cardiologist and later as Medical Director, Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at the University of Pennsylvania until his return to Israel in 2020.

Prof. Birati was appointed in May of this year as clinical associate professor at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine after publishing over 90 articles in leading cardiology journals, and serves as a guest editor in the prestigious journal Circulation: Heart Failure and as a reviewer in most of the leading cardiology journals.

Prof. Birati lives with his wife Yosefa and their 3 sons in the village of Hanaton in the Jezreel Valley. When asked about the move from the USA to the north of the country, he replied: "This is the best decision my wife and I have made, with the goal that our children will grow up as Israelis, and mainly stemming from ideological motives."

The cardiovascular division at the Padeh-Poria Medical Center includes the cardiology department, the heart surgery department, the vascular surgery unit and the thoracic surgery unit. The cardiovascular division has gained a reputation as one of the leading heart divisions in the country, and provides advanced diagnosis and treatment capabilities for all heart, chest, and blood vessel diseases, while combining medical and technological excellence alongside a high sense of service and clinical and laboratory research. Recently, the Institute for Cardiac Rehabilitation was opened, the purpose of which is to help patients return to full fitness after a heart attack, heart surgery, or heart failure. The unit for advanced heart failure will soon be opened, in which mechanical cardiac devices (artificial heart) will be implanted in patients suffering from end-stage heart failure.

One of the important goals of the division is to continue training the future generation of doctors and cardiologists. As part of the activity of the cardiovascular division at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, clinical rotations are held in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology interns are trained, and clinical studies are conducted, for theses as well as basic sciences.

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: Unmet Medical Needs in Chronic, Non-communicable Inflammatory Skin Diseases (Front Med (Lausanne) . )
Nasser Sakran: Nonhepatic Hyperammonemic Encephalopathy (NHE) after bariatric and metabolic surgery: A clinically challenging diagnosis (Asian J Surg .)
Jacob Bornstein: The European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO), the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease (ISSVD), the European College for the Study of Vulval Disease (ECSVD) and the European Federation for Colposcopy (EFC)
Orna Dally-Gottfried: Correction to: Early exposures and inherent factors in premature newborns are associated with type 1 diabetes (Pediatr Res .)
Aviv Mesika, Golan Nadav, Chen Shochat, Limor Kalfon, Karen Jackson, Ayat Khalaileh, David Karasik, Tzipora C Falik-Zaccai: NGLY1 Deficiency Zebrafish Model Manifests Abnormalities of the Nervous and Musculoskeletal Systems (Front Cell Dev Biol . )
Reema Fadul, Idan Redenski, Samer Srouji: Injectable Hydrogels Based on Inter-Polyelectrolyte Interactions between Hyaluronic Acid, Gelatin, and Cationic Cellulose Nanocrystals (Biomacromolecules . )
Jim Shalom: Susan: End-of-Life Journey (J Palliat Med . )
Liza Grosman-Rimon, Noa Caspi-Avissar, Dina Granot, Sagi Gleitman, Jawdat Badarny, Alla Lubovich, Doron Sudarsky, Jordan Rimon, Shemy Carasso, Edo Y Birati, Erez Kachel: Clinical factors and pre-surgical depression scores predict pain intensity in cardiac surgery patients (BMC Anesthesiol .)
Johad Khoury, Ronza Najjar-Debbiny, Ameer Elemy, Adel Jabbour, Juliana Haj, Rabah Yasin, Mohammad Amin, Elias Hellou, Najib Nasrallah, Amer Saffouri, Fahed Hakim: Immunity waning after COVID vaccine booster vs. infection-better than expected (Infect Dis (Lond) . )
Elon Glassberg: Toward a more complete understanding of who will benefit from prehospital transfusion (Transfusion .)
Edo Y Birati: Safety and Effectiveness of Intravenous Iron Therapy in Patients Supported by Durable Left Ventricular Assist Devices (J Clin Med .)
Amir Mari: The Natural History of Esophageal "Absent Contractility" and Its Relationship with Rheumatologic Diseases: A Multi-Center Case-Control Study (J Clin Med .)
Fadi Haddad: Changes in chorioretinal flow index after cataract surgery: an optical coherence tomography angiography study (Int Ophthalmol .)
Rola Khamisy-Farah: HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis and Its Impact on the Gut Microbiome in Men Having Sex With Men (Front Microbiol .)
Offir Ertracht, Shaul Atar, Dimitry Chuyun, Andrea Szuchman-Sapir: Paraoxonase 1 hydrolysis of EPA-derived lactone impairs endothelial-mediated vasodilation (Prostaglandins Other Lipid Mediat .)
Adnan Zaina:High Prevalence of Acromegaly in Different Industrial Areas: A Population-based Study from Haifa and Western Galilee District in Northern Israel ( Isr Med Assoc J . )
Radi Shahien, Karine Beiruti Wiegler, Lior Dekel, Adi Sharabi-Nov, Saad Abu Saleh: Retrospective study assessing the efficacy of i.v. dexamethasone, SNRB, and nonsteroidal treatment for radiculopathy (Medicine (Baltimore) .)
Enav Yefet, Manal Massalha, Adi Alter, Amit Gal Harnik, Sally Hosari Mahamed, Lia Novick, Malak Wattad, Jawad Sakas, Shira Baram, Amir Weiss, Rula Iskander, Avi Peretz, Johnny S Younis, Yuri Perlitz, Zohar Nachum: Should pregnant women be screened for SARS-CoV-2 infection? A prospective multicenter cohort study (Int J Gynaecol Obstet . )
Hadas Shasha-Lavsky: Lumasiran for Advanced Primary Hyperoxaluria Type 1: Phase 3 ILLUMINATE-C Trial (Am J Kidney Dis . )
Yaseen Awad-Igbaria, Shilo Dadon, Jacob Bornstein, Eilam Palzur: Characterization of Early Inflammatory Events Leading to Provoked Vulvodynia Development in Rats (J Inflamm Res .)
Johnny S Younis: Is Oocyte Quality Impaired in Cases With Ovarian Endometriosis? A Second Look Into the Clinical Setting (Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) . )
Amitai Bickel, Konstantin Akinichev, Michael Weiss, Samer Ganam, Seema Biswas, Igor Waksman, Eli Kakiashvilli: Challenges in abdominal re-exploration for war casualties following on-site abdominal trauma surgery and subsequent delayed arrival to definitive medical care abroad - an unusual scenario (BMC Emerg Med . )
Muhammad Mansour: Administrative codes may have limited utility in diagnosing biliary colic in emergency department visits: A validation study (Ann Hepatobiliary Pancreat Surg .)
Younes Bathish, Karine Beiruti, Hussein Safadi, Adi Sharabi Nov, Elena Bukovetzky, Michael Edelstein, Majdi Halabi, Zeev Israeli: Effects of hemodialysis with cooled dialysate on high-sensitive cardiac troponin I and brain natriuretic peptide (Hemodial Int .)
Khalaf Kridin: DNA chip-based diagnosis of onychomycosis and tinea pedis (J Dtsch Dermatol Ges .)
Orin Tal, Nour Ibrahim, Ohad Ronen: Assessment of Seasonal Pattern of Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss - A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study (J Laryngol Otol . )
Shirin Hamed Azzam, Khalaf Kridin: Influence of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination on the efficacy and safety of Botulinum Toxin type A injections (J Cosmet Dermatol .)
Limor Meoded Danon: Temporal sociomedical approaches to intersex* bodies (Hist Philos Life Sci .) - correction
Ron Nates, Liza Grosman-Rimon, Roy Israel, Leonid Sternik, Erez Kachel: The routine use of preoperative non-contrast chest computerized tomography and carotid arteries Doppler prior to cardiac surgery (J Cardiothorac Surg . )
Khalaf Kridin: Hidradenitis suppurativa and the risk of myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, and peripheral vascular disease: a population-based study (Arch Dermatol Res . )

Faculty News

Forum of Azrieli-Affiliated Medical Centers and HMOs Meeting The Forum of Azrieli Faculty of Medicine and Affiliate Medical Centers and District HMO management was held on June 27, 2022….
Graduate Degrees Conferred at Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, June 2022 This year we were proud to confer 16 MSc degrees at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine campus in Safed on June 29, 2022, and 11 PhD degrees at the main Bar-Ilan University campus in Ramat Gan on June 28, 2022….
MD Graduation 2022: 105 new doctors are born at Azrieli Faculty of Medicine This year, with beautiful July 4th weather, 62 students from the sixth four-year track graduating class, and 43 students from the seventh three-year track graduating class, were sworn in as physicians in the State of Israel….
In Memorium: Dr. Amir Kuperman The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine mourns the premature passing of one of its dear academic faculty members, Dr. Amir Kuperman z"l (to right)….
Certificates of Appreciation Awarded to Azrieli and Nazareth Hospital Lecturers Following ceremonies at Ziv Medical Center and the Galilee Medical Center, on July 21, 2022 the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine hosted a ceremony to thank the excellent lecturers from the Faculty as well as the affiliated hospitals in Nazareth and area kupot holim and hospitals…
Dr. Shai Bel Receives BSF Grant
Ilanot Medical Leadership Program Kick-Off Event A festive kick-off gathering took place at the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine on July 14, 2022…