The professional committee for setting up Israel's fifth medical school, headed by Prof. Aharon Beth Halachmi, yesterday picked Bar Ilan University to set up the new medical school in the Galilee. The decision was unanimous.
The Council for Higher Education in Israel appointed the committee in December 2007. In June 2009, the committee began reviewing the proposals by Bar Ilan University, and a joint proposal by the University of Haifa and Technion Israel Institute of Technology (which already has a medical school).
Bar Ilan University has been trying to get a medical school since the 1970s. The new medical school will be set up in Safed. It will offer three programs: an abbreviated four-year curriculum; a regular six-year curriculum; and a combined MD/Ph.D. program. The medical school will anchor a new a university campus to be founded in the Galilee.
Israel's four current medical schools are at the Technion, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
The Council for Higher Education plenum, chaired by Minister of Education Gideon Saar, still has to approve the decision.
The decision to establish a fifth medical school was taken five years ago, after a number of committees warned of an expected shortage of doctors in Israel. For example, in October 2002, the Pazi committee said that the number of medical students should be doubled from 2010 in order to avoid a decline in the number of doctors beginning in 2017. In June 2007, the Halevy committee expected a shortage of doctors beginning in 2015.
Bar Ilan University said in response, "Bar Ilan will invest every effort in building a professional school that will attract researchers and students from Israel and around the world. A medical research center will be set up adjacent to the school, which is planned to be the core of a whole city to be built. These plans will bring about the development of the Galilee and promote the medical profession in the north."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 28, 2009
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