Dear Friends of Rambam,

Our dynamic healthcare campus continues to shape-shift before our eyes as we make progress toward realizing our Vision of Adam master development plan. Most visible – and audible – are the renovations of existing facilities and the construction work on the site intended for our new West Campus hospital complex. Less obvious but as significant is the ongoing recruitment to our hospital staff of gifted physicians and innovative researchers.

Most recently, the State of Israel's Supreme Hospitalization Authority (SHA), which includes representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Home Front Command of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and other officials responsible for national emergency and disaster preparedness, has requested that our planned underground facility serve as the county's Northern Regional Underground Emergency Hospital and that its bed capacity be revised to meet the needs of Haifa and the surrounding neighborhoods. 

In the midst of so much change, the constant at Rambam is our commitment to saving and healing lives. Please join me in congratulating bride and groom Avital and Asael Lubotzky (pictured L, below, in June 2009) and Senior Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Alexander Lerner (pictured R, below, dancing with the groom). During the Second Lebanon War of Summer 2006, Lieut. Lubotzky was airlifted to us at Rambam in critical condition, having sustained grave leg injuries in the Battle of Bint Jubayl. Dr. Lerner insisted that the young man's legs could be saved and attended Lieut. Lubotzky through twenty orthopedic and cosmetic surgeries.

In these pages, we are pleased to share with you many such stories of courage and optimism on the part of patients and caregivers.