Galit Livnat-Levanon is part of a team fighting cystic fibrosis one cell at a time.
Landes, a 2018-2019 APF Fellow at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, is partway through a clinical and research fellowship in interventional cardiology.
“This particular subspecialty has both sides: innovation and technology on the one side and patient care on the other. It’s just a great combination for me. “Interventional cardiology is somewhere between being an internist and a surgeon,” says the Tel Aviv resident. “I like physics and manual stuff, also physiology and the cardiovascular system.”
The 49 ½- year-old pediatric pulmonologist is a 2018-2019 APF Research Fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. (CCHMC)
“This is amazing! I think about how I should have been here at age 29 or 30. Every doctor working in a hospital should have a year of their life doing basic laboratory research like this while they are learning their profession. It expands how you think about your everyday clinical life and it upgrades your skills. You understand more deeply and think more widely.”
Livnat-Levanon is Director of Pediatric Pulmonology and of the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Center at Carmel Medical Center in Haifa. She is also an award-winning clinician, researcher and clinical lecturer at Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine.
“Kids died of CF not so long in the past. Now we have new genetically targeted medications that have changed the prognostics. This seemed like science fiction 10 or 15 years ago.
“CF will be a chronic illness, but kids won’t die in two to three years. With children born now we are talking about a longevity of about 50 years. But the prediction is that it will soon lead to 60 or 70 if the disease is treated as early as possible.”
The APF Fellowship Program
Today, Israel has a ratio of just 3.1 doctors for every 100 people. Likewise only, 6.8 people per 1000 graduate with medical studies degrees. Both statistics put Israel near the bottom among the 36 nations surveyed by the OECD and are indicators of a significant shortage of qualified physicians throughout the country. This shortage of doctors adds to Dr. Alshiek’s remarkable story and is one of the reasons APF has committed to our Fellowship Program.
Shaping Future Leaders
Since our founding in1951, APF has played a significant role in helping to develop more than 1500 fellows like Dr. Barac who have gone on to be part of the next generation of Israel’s healthcare leaders. It is only through the generosity and commitment of our members and supporters that we are able to continue this program as a tangible answer to the shortage of physicians facing the people of Israel.
By joining APF – for less than 65 cents a day – you will become part of a unique organization of healthcare professionals who are committed to helping Israeli physicians learn advanced clinical and research techniques that they can bring to medically underserved areas throughout Israel. Your membership includes exclusive travel, educational and professional opportunities that are exclusive to APF members. And your support helps ensures that we have strong, skilled and competent leaders who will drive Israel’s healthcare forward.
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