Miriam team finds plenty to teach, learn in Israel

THE MIRIAM team shared its expertise but also learned plenty at Ha' Emek Medical Center. Above, from left, Carolyn Moalem and Larry Rich, of Ha'Emek; Jessica and Jeffrey Brier from Miriam; Dr. David Almog of Ha'Emek; Miriam's Dr. Gary Bubly and Lisa Baumhover; Ha'Emek CEO Dr. Orna Blondheim; Miriam's Michele Azevedo and Dr. David Boslough; and Ha'Emek's Mary Azriel and Dr. Tuvia Tiosano. /
THE MIRIAM team shared its expertise but also learned plenty at Ha' Emek Medical Center. Above, from left, Carolyn Moalem and Larry Rich, of Ha'Emek; Jessica and Jeffrey Brier from Miriam; Dr. David Almog of Ha'Emek; Miriam's Dr. Gary Bubly and Lisa Baumhover; Ha'Emek CEO Dr. Orna Blondheim; Miriam's Michele Azevedo and Dr. David Boslough; and Ha'Emek's Mary Azriel and Dr. Tuvia Tiosano. /

During a recent trip to the Ha’ Emek Medical Center in Israel, Dr. Gary Bubly and other staff members from The Miriam Hospital saw the medical staff handle a tractor trailer accident that killed two people and injured 13 others, six of them critically.
An army of people at Ha’ Emek responded, as well as trauma surgeons, who “very deftly handled the situation,” he said. The whole incident lasted one hour and 10 minutes.
For Ha’ Emek, such incidents are commonplace, Bubly said, because the hospital is used to dealing with terrorist bombings that can kill dozens of people.
Ha’ Emek Medical Center is the only hospital in Afula, a city in northern Israel, Bubly said, and it has been treating the victims of terrorist attacks since the second intifada began around 2000.
Bubly, a fellow doctor and three Miriam nurses visited Ha’ Emek for more than two weeks in March as part of an exchange program designed to expose medical professionals to different cultures and allow staffers from both hospitals to learn from one another.
The connection was made through the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, said Dr. Kathleen C. Hittner, president and CEO of Miriam. The federation participates in a program called Partnership 2000 that connects Israeli communities with communities in North America and Europe, and southern New England is partnered with the Afula and Gilboa regions of Israel.
A year ago, two doctors and two nurses from Ha’ Emek visited Miriam for three weeks, seeking to learn about general medical practice, administration, and quality assurance and quality improvement programs, Hittner said.
A team from Miriam was scheduled to visit Ha’ Emek last October, but Hittner said she postponed the trip due to safety concerns. The group finally left March 8: Bubly, associate director of emergency medicine; Dr. David Boslough, also an emergency physician; and three registered nurses, Lisa Baumhover, Michele Azevedo and Jessica Brier.
Hittner said Miriam paid for both trips, because Ha’ Emek could not afford the cost. Miriam is still tallying up the bill, Hittner said, but for the Providence hospital, it wasn’t a major expense. Looking ahead, Miriam is seeking a grant to support additional exchanges, she said, and it’s looking into organizations that support Jewish programs and education.
As Hittner sees it, connecting with an Israeli hospital is important because Miriam was founded by Jewish women, and even though it has always aimed to serve the broader population, it has always maintained a strong connection to the Jewish community. Hittner said she wants to make sure the hospital honors that legacy.
“Part of what got me interested in this was that this hospital has a wonderful, robust Jewish heritage,” she said. “I believe we need to make sure we don’t lose sight of that Jewish heritage, and we need to celebrate it.”
Hittner said she was also struck by how integrated the Ha’ Emek team was: During a visit to Miriam, Dr. Orna Blondheim, the hospital’s president and CEO, said Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Jews all worked together, treating patients of all backgrounds.
“Although there are wars, and there are bombings, they will take as good of care of the person who set the bomb off as they will of the person who was injured by the bomb,” Hittner said.
Brier, who works in cardiovascular care at Miriam, said that during the visit to Ha’ Emek, she saw Arab and Jewish families next to one another in the wards, accompanying the patients. It seemed like everyone got along inside of those hospital walls.
“It’s like a little island that doesn’t have a problem with coexistence,” Brier said. “But it’s just that little island that doesn’t have the problem.”
Outside, Bubly said, the security is impressive, with “layers of gates and barriers that you have to get through to even drive up to the facility. And then getting in, there are multiple checkpoints with armed security at every level.”
Ha’ Emek is, like other Israeli hospitals and schools, a target for Hamas, Brier said. Although she said she never felt threatened while staying at Ha’ Emek, she said the hospital has been close to where some bombs fell, though it has never been hit.
The trip also gave Bubly some ideas for how to run The Miriam Hospital in a more effective way. He said Ha’ Emek staffers use cell phones rather than beepers, so they all communicate instantaneously. He said that he also learned some pointers about disaster management that he and Boslough are going to take back to Miriam’s committee.
Boslough said the trip also brought the Miriam staff closer together.
“It took us several thousand miles to go across the ocean, to travel with this particular group of people, to really learn about ourselves and about the expertise that our group has, and what we’re doing in different parts of the hospital,” he said. “We didn’t know that before we went.”

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