This summer I was fortunate enough to spend a month with the Anaesthetics department at the Rambam in Haifa. It was a really great experience and I felt welcomed into the team immediately. The doctors were warm and friendly and despite my lack of Hebrew I was kept informed of what was going on and even managed to get some teaching.

The department is very relaxed and your experience depends on your own level of motivation.  You get out what you put in! Luckily, there was an English Oleh who is a resident in the department so I spent much of my time with him. I really appreciated that he was there as I didn’t feel like it was a burden for him to translate what was going on or to teach me as is sometimes the case when asking someone to speak their second (or third!) language.

In Israel, Anaesthetics and Intensive Care aren’t as closely linked as in the UK, but nevertheless it is possible to split your time between both. In either case, the day starts at 8am and finishes at 3pm leaving enough time for a couple of hours on the beach, which is right next to the hospital. In ICU there is a teaching ward round each morning at 8.

I was fortunate enough to spend a day shadowing the on call doctor, which provided numerous opportunities to assist at crash calls and tricky intubations. I would recommend trying to spend a day like this as it allowed me to see parts of the hospital I otherwise wouldn’t have seen.

I found everyone to be really helpful and they allowed me to get involved from the start, I even managed to intubate a few patients! The medicine in Israel was the same standard as in the UK, but the way of doing things is very much Israeli. There are no induction rooms and so the patient, fully conscious, is wheeled into the OR whilst everyone else is still setting up and talking at each other! There is much less hierarchy so the doctors quickly felt more like friends and colleagues than teachers. Be prepared for things to be done very differently!

I think a career in Anaesthetics in Israel would be a great choice for British medical graduates. The training is great, with 6 months supernumerary, with one-on-one teaching and from what I was told getting a residency is much less competitive than in the UK.

I would be happy to chat if anyone has any questions – feel free to get in touch!

Thanks again to the JMA for the generous support.

Talya Finke
Kings College London