Medipost Spring 2017

The Meir Dagan Surgical Intensive Care Unit is dedicated

Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center held a moving ceremony in March to dedicate the Meir Dagan Surgical Intensive Care Unit. The unit is named for the late Meir Dagan, a former major-general in the Israeli army and a former director of the Mossad.

Guests pay tribute to a man of valor
The event was attended by a host of honored guests, including Transportation Minister and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, National Security Advisor and Mossad Director Yossi Cohen, former Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin, former Mossad director Tamir Pardo, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center CEO Professor Ronni Gamzu, Surgery Division Director Professor Joseph Klausner, Ezra LeMarpeh Director Rabbi Elimelech Firer, and members of the Dagan family, including Meir’s wife Bina, his brother, children, and grandchildren.
Professor Yitzhak Shapira, the medical center’s Deputy Director General and Dagan’s personal physician, spoke about their enduring friendship and the medical team’s efforts to save Dagan’s life.

Professor Gamzu described the unique relationship between the Medical Center and Israel’s security services, while Dr. Katz recalled Dagan’s dedicated work on behalf of the State of Israel. Dagan’s legacy enriches a nationwide mission of care and service, such as helping thousands of patients and visitors gain access to the Medical Center via a new tunnel linked to the light rail.

Remembered for his determination
Dagan’s daughter Noa said that giving her father’s name to a unit that works night and day to save lives was a touching tribute to his memory. She described the devoted care that her father received and the friendship, trust and love that developed between Dagan and the medical team, and said that Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center had become like a home for the Dagan family.

The hospital thanked the Dagan family for their trust and the donation they made in Meir’s memory: a care unit that represents Meir Dagan’s fighting spirit.

Fresh clothes, fresh outlook

 
 Children modeling at the Dana's New Clothes event

 
The last thing that children in the hospital need is to look and feel like sick patients — so the children at Dana-Dwek Children’s Hospital, along with their parents and hospital staff, rolled up their sleeves and did something about it. With generous support from the Maskit Fashion House, the children designed new hospital gowns that let them express themselves, be comfortable and make the best of a difficult situation.

Fundraising for a great cause
The money for the new duds came from a clever fundraiser that also showed off the children’s talents. Equipped with digital cameras, they took photographs documenting their hospital experience. They then displayed their photographs at a Noor Gallery exhibition opening entitled Dana’s New Clothes, produced a professional photo book, and sold prints. The children modeled their designs with a new perspective, redefining what it means to be a patient.

Hats off to the children
All in all, the event, which also featured a performance by Shefita, raised over $80,000 (NIS 300,000) toward the purchase of the new gowns.

The Pfizer family provides mission-advancing backing for the Medical Center

Supporting two mission-critical initiatives close to their hearts, Lily Pfizer and her husband, Professor Reuven Pfizer, former Maternity Ward director, have donated generously to advance services for children and to boost hospital leadership.

Setting sights on a new Pediatric Imaging Center
The new Pediatric Imaging Center that the Pfizer family has funded will enable children to undergo diagnostic imaging testing in a kid-friendly environment close to Dana-Dwek Children’s Hospital, instead of being taken to the adult facility.


The Pfizer Wexler Ofek Fellowship Fund nurtures the next generation of medical professionals
The Ofek Program, which offers fellowships and training for up-and-coming physicians in medicine, research, and management, was re-designed and expanded this year thanks to the Pfizer Wexler Ofek Fellowship Fund for 2017.
The expanded Ofek initiative will select outstanding physicians and personalize programs for them in a five-year track of excellence for future development.
The program donations were made by the Fund for Development and Advancement, founded by Lily Pfizer’s late father, Mr. Emanuel Racine, who also gave generously to the Medical Center, commemorating his wife in the establishment of the Sara Racine IVF Unit.

Just what the doctor ordered: The Azrieli Foundation donates $10 million for precision diagnostics

 

On a visit to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in 2016, Dana Azrieli, Chair of the Azrieli Group, gained a first-hand view of the Medical Center’s numerous contributions across the medical spectrum for residents from all over Israel. She also developed a new appreciation of the Medical Center’s severe budget limitations for procuring state-of-the-art equipment for care and research.

An application that matched the Azrieli Foundation’s mission for medical care and research
The Azrieli Foundation, headed by Naomi Azrieli, graciously responded to a proposal to fund precision diagnostics equipment for the Nuclear Imaging Institute, the Genetics Institute, and the Pathology Institute. This equipment will enable the Medical Center to provide personalized, targeted, and accelerated care using a collaborative approach to diseases as broad as cardiology, hematology, oncology, neurology, and gastroenterology, to name only a few. This integrated machine-enabled method will help diagnose patients more quickly and lower testing risks, reduce pain and suffering, and eliminate many unknowns that are frightening for patients and their families.


Propelling the Medical Center into a new era
The Azrieli Foundation donated $10 million to purchase this precision equipment, which will help realize the Medical Center’s vision of medical and research excellence and multi-disciplinary leadership worldwide. We are deeply grateful to the Azrieli family and the Azrieli Foundation for their generous donation.

The Nissim Douek Center for Medical Simulation for hands-on training

 
The medical simulation field is growing rapidly, with more and more medical schools and training programs requiring simulation for physicians in training. The Nissim Douek Center for Medical Simulation will promote safe and effective medical practices with no risk to patients and caregivers. It will also provide immediate feedback to trainees while documenting and assessing their performance.

Simulating care leads to medical excellence
In simulation, physicians use mannequins with fully interactive, realistic simulators to practice procedures in surgery, anesthesiology, intensive care, emergency medicine, and other clinical settings. Simulation also goes beyond medical technique. It builds physicians’ skills regarding bedside manner and enables role-playing for interacting with patients’ families in difficult situations.

A goal made possible by Mr. Ronny Douek’s generous donation
Thanks to Mr. Ronny Douek’s generous donation, the Nissim Douek Center for Medical Simulation will have more than 5,300 square feet of dedicated simulation space with state-of-the-art simulators that include computer-controlled mannequins, task trainers, virtual-reality flat-screen simulators, and clinical equipment that is new to Israel.
The center’s main mission is to develop competent, confident, astute, reflective and ethical health-care providers. Studies show that the Medical Center can expect to lower medical incidents and increase patient satisfaction in the process.

Financial support by the Chaya Charitable Trust aims to help identify the genetics that protect against Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common late-onset neurodegenerative disease that affects two percent of all people over 65 of all races and geographical origins. PD symptoms include slow movement, resting tremor, muscle rigidity, and postural instability. There is no cure or therapy to protect against neuron loss in PD at present.

PD has genetic, age and/or environmental causes. Interestingly, an Ashkenazi gene mutation that occurs in 75 percent of the population is associated with people who do not get the disease. The Medical Center team, led by Genetics Institute Director Professor Avi Orr-Urtreger and Neurology Division Head Professor Nir Giladi, has been studying this mutation, as well as other PD-related genes and their potential protective factors for PD.

A donation that serves a dual mission
The generous donation by the Chaya Charitable Trust will enable the team to study Ashkenazi Jewish PD patients as well as these protective genetic variants. This contribution will help them make strides in understanding neurodegeneration in order to provide better disease care and prevention. Since Parkinson’s disease starts years before symptoms occur, the window of time for prevention is wide open.

Morris Kahn invests in up-and-coming researchers over five years

From left to right: Professor Ronni Gamzu, Ms. Ariella Kisch Delaney, Mr. Morris Kahn, 4 Medical Center researchers, Dr. Michal Roll


The Medical Center places great importance on advancing research and nurturing the younger generation of outstanding research physicians. Thanks to a big-hearted donation of two million dollars from Morris Kahn, the Medical Center has launched the Orion Program for outstanding researchers. This program enables outstanding physicians to perform research in parallel with their clinical specialization so that their training and work promote quality research, medicine, and teaching.

Rewarding excellence and potential in clinical care and research
Each of the four physicians selected to be Kahn Fellows receives $125,000 (NIS 500,000) over five years. Fellowship recipients were selected by a scientific committee headed by Professor Gad Keren, the Medical Center’s Chief Scientist. The selection also factored in the availability of a supportive research environment and the potential adaptation of the research to the hospital’s needs.

The following doctors were chosen:
Dr. Aya Barzelay
Department of Ophthalmology, under the guidance of Professor Adiel Barak and Professor Anat Levenstein
Dr. Or Friedman
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, under the supervision of Dr. Nir Shani and Dr. Eyal Gur
Dr. Itay Moskowitz
The Institute of Digestive and Liver Diseases, under the direction of Dr. Ehud Sigmund and Professor Zamir Halpern
Dr. Ofer Isakov
The Institute of Digestive and Liver Diseases and the Genetics Institute, under the guidance of Professor Iris Dotan and Dr. Shai Ben Shachar

Infant treated at the Medical Center was the first in Israel to receive a pioneering medication for neuro-muscular disease

Dana-Dwek Children’s Hospital was the first in Israel to administer the FDA-approved drug Sprinraza for treating spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in infants. The patient, a six-month-old girl who responded well to her first dose of the therapy, is one of the 6,000 to 11,000 people afflicted with this genetic condition. Without treatment, patients lose motor neuron function and experience progressive muscle atrophy, especially in the respiratory system, which can lead to premature death.

A breakthrough toward a cure
Prof. Aviva Fattal-Valevski, head of the hospital’s Pediatric Neurology Unit, said, “This is a breakthrough in the treatment of genetic diseases of this type, which in the past would have been considered science fiction.”
We hope that the drug will soon become part of the health basket, joining the list of medications available to patients in Israel.



 

Hip-joint rehabilitation without invasive surgery
“It is now possible to rehabilitate and restore hip joints so that patients can return to doing things that were once part of their normal routine,” says Dr. Ehud Rath, the Director of the Minimally Invasive Orthopedics Unit, who set the global trend by pioneering the arthroscopic non-invasive surgical technique.

Accelerated recovery and return to activity
The procedure is performed as day surgery, with patients discharged either on the same day or the next day. In most cases, patients can put weight on their foot several hours after surgery and can walk without crutches after about two weeks. It takes about three months for athletes to return to their previous performance levels. This personalized medicine, which includes tailored rehabilitation, is the last word in Western hip solutions.

Dr. Rath and his team recently published an effective new technique for post-arthroscopic pain relief for the initial recovery period – the first 12 hours after the surgery.

 
Cataract investment shortens transplant wait times dramatically
Patients needing cataract transplants at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center no longer need to wait a year, as is the average in Israel. Dr. David Varssano, Head of Corneal Transplants, explains that the Medical Center has purchased a cornea bank, which now enables many patients to undergo a transplant as a routine procedure due to organ availability. In the last seven months of 2016, at least 75 patients began seeing more clearly thanks to transplants of donated corneas.

 



Critically ill patients breathe more easily
The intensive care unit now has an improved method for supporting patients whose hearts and lungs are not strong enough to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system provides cardiac and respiratory support for critical patients suffering from respiratory failure due to infection, flu or other serious conditions, and for patients recovering from surgery.





The latest in cardiac mapping – the only medical center in Israel
The Interventional Cardiology Unit has a new arrhythmia machine that enables a more precise mapping of electrical stimuli originating from the inner surface of the heart’s chambers. The system enables cardiologists to navigate precisely within the heart in order to identify the pathological causes of arrhythmias and neutralize them with ablation techniques.





A revolutionary, minimally-invasive surgery for heart valve surgeries

Cardiovascular surgeons have succeeded in performing a new operation to repair mitral heart valves using a small incision and without needing a heart-lung machine. The procedure has been used successfully on two patients so far. It uses NeoChord technology, which enables valve repair without stopping the heart, and reduces surgical trauma.

A benchmark in surgical recovery
This technology, which has been tested in a small number of medical centers around the world, uses a transesophageal echocardiogram and three-dimensional guidance. The procedure — a best practice for collaboration among surgeons, cardiologists, echocardiographers, and anesthesiologists — positions the Medical Center as a leader in innovative and minimally invasive surgery.

 



Residential tower for professional Medical Center staff opening soon
Constructed for the Medical Center’s dedicated care team, the newly built on-campus iLIVE residential tower will be ready for tenancy as early as September 2017. The 20-storey tower features 274 rental apartments. This amenity-rich, reduced-rent facility will help staff members work close to home so that they can have more family time and still be available in times of emergency.

 

Newly launched pain clinic supports children with acute or chronic pain

The new Multidisciplinary Pediatric Pain Clinic at Dana-Dwek Children’s Hospital addresses the unique needs of children who experience chronic or acute pain. The clinic’s objectives are to provide treatment and therapies based on the best medical evidence to help children take control of their lives instead of letting their lives be controlled by pain. This improves well-being and helps children return to their regular daily activities, such as going to school and participating in extra-curricular activities, socializing and performing the physical activities they used to enjoy.

The pain clinic uses a family-centered “3 P” approach, providing pharmacology (medication), psychology (coping strategies and therapy), and physiotherapy (for return to optimized physical activity).

The clinic, which is managed by Dr. Daniel Stocki, a pediatric anesthesiologist, is staffed by two pediatric psychologists, two pediatric physiotherapists, and a pain-care nurse.

Clinic for diagnosing and treating sexually transmitted diseases
The new clinic provides diagnostic services for primary venereal diseases, such as gonorrhea, chlamydia and AIDS, with a fast-track two-hour turnaround. This service, which focuses on early detection to help prevent serious health impact, is completely anonymous. When necessary, the patient is treated immediately or referred for further testing.


 
 

A Life-Saving Stroke Phone
Every minute counts for patients who have had a stroke. The Stroke Phone enables patients to be treated while en route to the hospital and prepares the stroke care team to be ready for the patient’s arrival. Magen David Adom ambulance personnel use the Stroke Phone to contact the hospital’s emergency care staff and expert neurologist while they are on the way to the ER.
Orchestrating care
Care for severe strokes requires a cross-disciplinary team that includes a neurologist who specializes in stroke care, a cerebral angiography specialist, imaging specialists and diagnosticians. The Medical Center’s rededicated Stroke Center, headed by Dr. Hen Hallevi, enables patient-focused care from arrival through discharge and rehabilitation.

Awards

Dr. Anat Mirelman is awarded the prestigious Susanne Klein-Vogelbach Prize
Dr. Anat Mirelman, the Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Movement Cognition and Mobility, was recently awarded the 2016 Susanne Klein-Vogelbach Prize for the Research of Human Movement. This international prize is given to the researcher whose publication has the greatest clinical and research impact on movement science.

Dr. Mirelman’s article, which appeared in The Lancet, analyzed the therapeutic effect of V-Time, the augmented reality walking training system developed by Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center researchers. The study, which was discussed in a the fall 2016 Medipost, found that the system was 42 percent more successful in reducing falls in older adults than walking alone.

Appointments

Prof. Ofer Yossepowitch: Director of the Urology Department