Wednesday 24th January | 19:00 GMT
Shani Levany is the granddaughter of Lia Huber, a survivor of the twins experiments in Auschwitz. She finished medical school this past summer and will soon be starting an internship. She is the TA for the course “Medicine’s reflection in the Holocaust” at the Goldman Medical School, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er-Sheva, Israel; and is the head of the Student Advisory Council to the Lancet Commission on Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust.
Watch a recording of the event here.
Dr Kviat will be speaking together with Prof Alex Zlotnik, Prof of Anaethesiology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and Chair, Dept of Anaesthesiology, Soroka Medical Centre, Beersheva on Anaesthesia and Trauma Care at the front line in Soroka Medical Centre.
In addition, Prof Yehuda Ginosar (Director, Mother and Child Anaesthesia Unit, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Centre), will give an update on the ongoing situation in Israel.
Watch a recording of the event here.
Dr Shlomo Gensler, Emergency Pre-hospital and Flight Physician for United Hatzalah; Anaesthesia Resident, Dept of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Hadassah Ein Karem University Hospital
Tuesday 26th December | 19:00 GMT
Dr Gensler will give a first-hand account of how events unfolded on 7th October and explain the emergency pre-hospital medical response during that fateful day. This will be followed by an account of experiences treating the wounded in the Hadassah University Hospital Intensive Care Unit.
Watch a recording of the event here.
Israel at War – Special online medical webinar Tuesday 24th October 2023 | 8:00pm UK time Speaker: Dr. Ruth Waitzberg Myers – JDC – Brookdale Institute, Jerusalem, Israel. Watch a recording of the event here.
Dr. Ruth Waitzberg is a research scholar at the health policy unit at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, where she started working in 2010. From 2020, she is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Healthcare Management at the Berlin University of Technology, and at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. She is on the Board of two journals: Health Policy Open and Israel Journal of Health Policy Research.
Ruth has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology and political science and a master’s degree in public policy, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; a PhD in health systems management; and a Dr. P.H. done jointly between Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and the Berlin University of Technology in Germany.
Her primary research areas are financing health systems, payments to health providers and financial incentives, health insurance, policy evaluation, health and long-term care systems, and international comparisons.
Israel at War: Special Online Medical Webinar | Monday 16 October | 7pm BST
Speaker: Prof Mark Clarfield MD FRCPC
Emeritus Professor, Ben-Gurion University; Chair, Israel National Council on Geriatrics
Prof Clarfield will be giving an update from Israel with his perspective as a doctor.
Watch a recording of the event here.
Profs Clarfield and Paltiel, from Ben Gurion University and Hebrew University / Hadassah respectively, need no introduction to the Association.
In addition to their work in Israel itself they have been engaged with healthcare in Ethiopia for several years, where there has been a civil war for many years.
For this special event that are joined by their colleague from Ayder Hospital, Berhane Yohannes Hailu.
Very recently there has been a ceasefire, but the healthcare systems remain in a critical condition.
Further details were published at the end of January: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2800965
To hear more about the remarkable – and sad – experiences of those who have been engaged with this forgotten civil war, please register here.
Professor Ranjit Manchanda (Professor of Gynaecological Oncology and Consultant Gynaecological Oncologist; Co-Lead, Cancer Prevention Unit, QMUL)
A programme to pilot population based BRCA testing in the Jewish population is being developed by The Early Diagnosis Team (EDT) within the National Cancer Programme at NHS England. Through this new programme, NHS funded BRCA testing will be made available to all Jewish adults in England – distinguishing it from the current NHS service where only those who meet family-history based criteria are eligible.
The pilot will involve two main elements:
- clinical delivery – creating the testing pathways (being developed in consultation with a broad -based Expert Advisory Group) required to deliver BRCA testing to the Jewish population with appropriate NHS laboratory, genetic counselling support and oversight.
- an engagement campaign – raising awareness of, and supporting BRCA testing uptake by, the Jewish population.
Delivery of BRCA testing via the pilot is provisionally scheduled to begin in early 2023. The pilot offers a significant opportunity to address a major gap in BRCA testing provision for the ‘at-increased-risk’ Jewish people in the UK. This can identify more people at high risk of cancer who can benefit from early diagnosis and cancer prevention.
The aim of this webinar is to provide an opportunity to learn more about the programme and how we can support/engage with it. The webinar presentation can be accessed here.
What are the priorities for the polio incident response?
A panel discussion on this topic took place on Tuesday 20th September.
The panellists were:
- Dr Jonathan Cohen (Head of Paediatric Infectious Diseases Services, Evelina London Children’s Hospital at St Thomas’),
- Dr Mary Ramsay (Director of Public Health Programmes at the UK Health Safety Agency),
- Dr Leonora Weil (Public Health Consultant, UK Health Security Agency, London; Co-Director, NHS London COVID Legacy and Equity Partnership, focussing on closing the equity gap in routine immunisations, screening and access to good health; and lead for a multi-stakeholder pan London Task Force for UKHSA and the NHS to increase rates of uptake for all childhood vaccinations);
- Dr Joseph Spitzer (General Practitioner, North – East London) and
- Dr Ben Kasstan (medical anthropologist at the University of Bristol and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).
Further details about these panellists can be accessed here.
Prof David Katz was in the chair and Dr Fiona Sim proposed a vote of thanks.
The starting point for this panel discussion was that doctors and healthcare professionals need to be aware of the “real story” of the polio incident as a starting point for what they say to patients, to communities and to colleagues asking questions. Given the Jewish linkage that has been reported during the current incident, it is a particularly relevant issue for Jewish doctors – not only because cases might arise, but also to combat any misinformation.
We were fortunate to be able to call on several experts involved in aspects of the incident to lead us through and educate us about the issues involved.
We heard about polio as an infectious disease, about the virus itself; and about what wastewater analysis is and what it teaches us.
We were given an overview of the response programme, learned about the role of general practice in vaccination and also learned about the factors which influence communities to become better engaged in vaccination strategies.
Drs Cohen, Ramsay, Weil and Kasstan have kindly made their powerpoint presentations available.
For CPD purposes the specific learning objectives of the event can be accessed here.
Watch a recording of the full event here.
Dr Jon Goldin
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Mildred Creak Unit, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
Wednesday 7th September 2022 8pm Risks and Benefits of Social Media for the Mental Health of Adolescent
Jon Goldin has been head of service at the Mildred Creak Unit for the past 20 years; and was joint Head of Department of Psychological and Mental Health Services at GOSH; and joint Programme Director, GOSH / Royal London Higher Training Scheme in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for many years until 2022. He was Vice-Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatry Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Faculty for 4 years) and is the College Lead on Parliamentary Engagemenr. He has an interest in engagement and lobbying for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and has made many TV and Radio presentations on this topic.
In his talk Jon explained that we know that rates of mental health difficulties amongst young people are (sadly) rising. For example, the UK NHS Digital study showed rates of probable mental disorders have increased since 2017. In 2020, 1 in 6 children aged 5 to 16 years were identified as having a probable mental disorder, increasing from 1 in 9 in 2017.
At the same time, we know that use of Social Media amongst young people has been increasing significantly. This is correlation – we cannot infer causation – but these trends were explored further.
He said that we also know that Young People’s Social Media use can have both risks and benefits. In his talk he made specific reference to several areas of concern: Sleep, Depression/Self Harm/Suicide, Eating Disorders, Cyberbullying, Safeguarding and Addiction. Helpful aspects were considered, particularly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic; and he proposed sone suggestions for mitigating risks.
Watch a recording of the event here.
Dr David Spitzer is usually known as a general practitioner in North London. As he spends part of his time in Stamford Hill, he does see families with many children….
Earlier in 2022, however, he noticed a call out on the Jewish Doctors’ Group from Dr Karyn Moshal, asking for help with refugee children who are escaping from the ongoing violence and war in the Ukraine…….
This linked him in turn to the organisation “Tikva” with a core mission: “care for the homeless, abandoned and abused Jewish children of Ukraine and neighbouring regions of the former Soviet Union”. Some of us will have read about the Tikva CFO, Jeremy Posen, and his mission to rescue of many children from Odessa.
So David took up the call, and volunteered….
His messages and tweets from the field kept us informed in a different way.
The war suddenly had a “human face”, a medical colleague as an eye witness about its effects. Thus “In our prayers, we constantly request shalom, peace. Like air, food and shelter, peace is an essential prerequisite to life. But in our daily lives, how much do we appreciate it?
We are honoured that David has agreed to talk to the Jewish Medical Association UK about his experiences.
Watch a recording of the event
here.
