Dear Friends,

On behalf of the Board of Directors of American Friends of Soroka Medical Center, and the entire staff of Soroka Medical Center, I extend to you best wishes for a Happy and Healthy Passover. If your travel plans for Passover or the coming summer vacation months include Israel - we encourage you to visit the Soroka campus in Beer Sheva. It is extraordinarily moving to witness first-hand the care, scale, energy and diversity that is evident in every corner of our campus. We will gladly arrange a tour for you to accommodate your particular interests.

As we approach Passover we pray, as always, for peace. The imagery of November’s Pillar of Defense operation in the Negev is quite vivid: "And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them and stood behind them; and it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud and the darkness here, yet gave it light by night there; and the one came not near the other all the night.” [Exodus, 14:19-20]. In times of emergency, Soroka’s amazing and compassionate medical staff are 100% mobilized to keep the hospital functioning, protect our patients and treat all wounded – victims of physical and emotional trauma. May our prayers for an enduring peace be answered.

I would like to share a moving excerpt from an essay written by a Soroka physician from the Department of Psychiatry during the Pillar of Defense operation that illuminates the extraordinary intensity in which we operate and the essence of caring and depth of emotion of our staff. “My personal war has been going on for a long time. A fierce battle is taking place on the front. For the past several years mortar shells and trajectory missiles have been flying over my house and the surrounding fence has been breached and attacked. The world of colors has taken on new meaning (“red” is the code for imminent missile attack)…. the notion of "a safe place" or "my house is my castle" has been eroded with time. Paradoxically, my workplace in Beer Sheva became, for most of the time, a type of safe haven for my patients and myself. The Milstein Trauma Recovery Center where I work is a small quiet corner in the hospital. There I find my office to be quieter and more comfortable than where my own children are. The larger the gap, the greater the tension and divergence between the interior and the exterior. This war is long, but apparently not so intensive, like a drawn-out headache, piercingly quiet - a constant alertness in anticipation of the inevitable transition from routine to emergency. Apparently the only way humankind can deal with it is to join both of them into "Emergency Routine". The radio tells me to make the transition, right now, without a moment to spare. In another week, with the declaration of a ceasefire, I'll be expected to reverse the transition, to switch back to routine; once again, immediately, without hesitation, but the body has its own rhythm. The psyche too." We have become expert by default at executing this transition as seamlessly as possible.

Please consider a gift to Soroka Medical Center during this Passover holiday season. Your generosity will enable us to provide critical care to Israelis in times of emergency, further our cutting edge research, and help fulfill our life-saving mission.

Dr. Shimon Glick

Dr. Shimon Glick’s career spans major accomplishments in medical science and patient care, as well as international stature as a leading thinker in modern Jewish Medical Ethics. We are extremely proud that Dr. Glick will be the guest of honor at the upcoming Soroka Gala Benefit Dinner – he is exceptionally well deserving of the honor that will be bestowed upon him on June 18 at The Harvard Club in NYC. Dr. Glick has taught and inspired generations of physicians at Soroka, and he has a strong network of professional colleagues around the world, developed over the years through collaborations emanating from his cutting-edge research in the US and Israel. We hope you will join us in honoring him at what will be a wonderful celebration.

Dr. Shimon Glick is a native of New Jersey and graduate of Downstate Medical Center in New York. He trained in internal medicine at Maimonides Medical Center, Yale University Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital, and was a research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Solomon Berson and Nobel Laureate Dr. Rosalyn Yalow at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital, where he made major research contributions in the field of endocrinology. Dr. Glick served as Chief of Medical Services at the Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Downstate Medical Center. He was President of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists in the USA from 1965-67, and co-founder and first president of the Society of Urban Physicians, an activist group of department chairmen for improvement of patient care conditions in New York City's municipal hospitals.

In 1974 he made aliya and became Professor of Medicine and founding Chairman of the Division of Medicine at Soroka Medical Center, also serving at the new Ben-Gurion University Faculty of Health Sciences. He joined Soroka Medical Center specifically because it was in one of the most underserved areas in Israel – and he has been working continuously at Soroka for the past 39 years. Dr. Glick served as Dean of the BGU School of Medicine and head of health services in the Negev region, and head of the Moshe Prywes Center for Medical Education. He was President of the Israeli Endocrine Society. For over a decade he served as the ombudsman for Israel's National Health Service. He has received numerous awards including lifetime achievement awards from Israel's Ministry of Health, and from the Israeli Society of Internal Medicine. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science of the United States.

Dr. Glick is considered by many as The Father of Humanistic Medicine. Through his leadership, Soroka has been become a flagship for very unique compassionate and humanistic care. He has headed the center for medical education where health care providers are trained to treat the The Patient as a Human Being. By personal example he initiated the strong trend of Top Physicians who volunteered to provide free care in outlying towns throughout the entire Negev to Israel's most indigent.

Throughout all his years in Soroka Hospital he has inspired students and young physicians to adopt a compassionate approach to all patients. He has also played a major role in recruiting outstanding physicians to join the Soroka Team and help make Soroka one of the leading hospitals in Israel.

Dr. Glick is also considered a world leader in Medical Ethics and was the Chair of The Lord Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits Center for Medical Ethics at BGU. He has published extensively on issues related to organ transplantation, approach to the terminal patients, telling the truth to the patients, physician compassion and much more.

Professor Glick is the husband of Brenda (nee Rubenstein), father of 6, grandfather of 46, and great- grandfather of 41. The family is part of the fabric of Israeli society, represented in the fields of Medicine, Education, High Tech, Law and Military Service.

FALL / WINTER SEASON IN REVIEW