For my elective, I went to the haematology-oncology department at the Schneider Children
Medical Centre in Israel. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and would recommend the elective to future students. There were many fascinating experiences of how culture
combines with medicine, such as seeing a doctor spend 20 minutes to write a referral to a
rabbi, so that the rabbi can provide medico-religious advice to the Jewish mother of a
3-year-old child with cancer who had a poor prognosis. These experiences have allowed me to appreciate the perspectives of religious patients in different religions, and I feel I am now better able to understand their thinking regarding medical decisions.
There were also many opportunities for me to develop my interests as a prospective academic clinician. Weekly journal club presentations included talks from world experts UCL, Chile and Canada, and most clinicians were happy to chat about their research with me. I therefore felt I gained useful advice on getting experience in medical research and have expanded my international research network. Clinically, the ethnicities present in Israel gave me more exposure to conditions which aren’t as common in the UK. Consanguinity is prevalent in certain communities in Israel, and as such, rare genetic syndromes that predispose patients to cancer are more common. There are also conditions which are more common in the ethnicities prominent in Israel, which meant I had good exposure to conditions such as sickle cell anaemia and beta-thalassemia. As such, I felt the elective has given me an increased understanding of these conditions, which I hope will translate to increased confidence in managing patients with these conditions in my work as a doctor.
Tamir Sirkis (Exeter)
