Twenty young immigrants from France have arrived in Eilat to begin pre-medical studies, Ynetnews reports. They made aliyah, the word for Jews moving to live in Israel, and are now studying in the southern city as it moves ahead with a long-running plan to establish its own medical faculty.
The students have not yet been admitted to medical school, Ynetnews reports. They are in a preparatory program meant to help them pursue medical studies in Israel, and admission to a future degree program is not guaranteed. Eilat sits on the Red Sea in Israel's far south and is known mostly as a holiday destination, Practice English with News reports. The city is hundreds of kilometers from Israel's main academic and medical centers, and that distance has long made it hard to recruit and keep doctors and other medical professionals, according to Ynetnews.
The project is led by physician Dr. Moshe Cohen, Eilat Mayor Eli Lankri, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Debrecen in Hungary and local partners, Ynetnews reports. Organizers say Israel's Council for Higher Education has approved the project. The faculty itself has not yet opened, and further steps are required before degree studies can begin.
Cohen has worked for years to establish the faculty and sees local medical education as one answer to the region's shortages, according to Ynetnews. The report notes the challenges ahead: securing approvals, building clinical training programs, recruiting faculty and keeping the school financially and academically sound over the long run. The goal is for graduates to stay and practice in southern Israel.
The plan also includes a medical research and development center in Eilat and possible academic cooperation with institutions overseas, Ynetnews reports. Discussions have included potential partnerships with universities and research bodies in Arab countries. The University of Debrecen's medical faculty is already part of the project's international framework, while the research center and other partnerships remain under development.
Here is what it means. Twenty young French Jews chose to build their lives in Israel's southernmost city, and Eilat hopes they will become the doctors it has struggled to find. Organizers hope the program will draw more students from abroad and tie immigration to Israel's universities and health system. The first group of students and the regulatory approval are early steps. The larger test, as Ynetnews puts it, is whether they lead to a working medical faculty and more doctors serving the south.
