Eilat begins path to establishing a medical school

A Hungarian university will open a preclinical program with plans to expand into a full six-year medical track.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Eilat has taken its first step toward establishing Israel’s southernmost medical school. On Tuesday, the Council for Higher Education (CHE) approved the opening of a preclinical medical program in the city by a Hungarian university.

It marks the first time a foreign academic institution has been authorized to operate such a program in Israel.

The University of Debrecen will run the three-year preclinical track as a private institution.

Graduates will initially be required to complete their clinical training at another medical school, although the long-term plan is to expand the program into an independent, full six-year medical faculty in Eilat.

During the initial phase, students’ practical training will take place at community clinics and hospitals operated by the Clalit health fund, which backed the initiative.

Clalit owns Eilat’s Yoseftal Medical Center as well as Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, the main hospital serving the Negev.

The CHE said the initiative aims to strengthen Israel’s geographic periphery and increase the number of students studying medicine domestically rather than abroad, including through international academic collaboration.

Israel faces a well-documented shortage of physicians.

As part of the solution, new medical schools have opened in recent years at Ariel University in Samaria, Reichman University in Herzliya, and Bar-Ilan University in Safed, with the University of Haifa expected to launch its own program this year.

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which had previously been invited by the CHE to establish a similar preclinical program in Eilat, reacted angrily to the decision.

The university said the move “undermines the basis on which our commitment was given.”

It had been prepared to take on the project “despite the significant challenges,” out of a sense of mission to develop “the Negev, and especially Eilat and the Arava,” but will now halt its preparations to open the track as early as the coming academic year.

University President Daniel Haimovitz also criticized the quality of foreign universities.

“There is a serious concern that this decision marks the beginning of a broader process of making [lower-level] colleges out of medical studies in Israel, in which local authorities will establish collaborations with foreign institutions in a way that could lead to fragmentation of the system [and] hurt academic standards,” he said.

The CHE stated that any program would receive approval only if it fully meets Israeli academic standards.