Rabin Medical Center continues to strengthen its ties with the Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) in Washington, DC, one of America's leading medical institutions.

Dr. Howard Federoff, Executive Vice President for Health Sciences at Georgetown University and Executive Dean of the School of Medicine was hosted at Rabin Medical Center this summer for an intensive three day visit as the personal guest of Dr. Eyran Halpern, CEO of Rabin Medical Center and Dr. Boaz Tadmor, Director of Rabin Medical Center's Beilinson Hospital, whom he had met earlier in the year in the USA. The purpose of the visit was to explore the potential for closer collaboration between the two medical centers, giving Dr. Federoff the opportunity to learn in person of the excellent work being performed by Rabin Medical Center's first-rate teams and allowing for a sharing of knowledge, expertise and vision.

Professional meetings included discussion groups on a variety of subjects of mutual interest with leading experts from Rabin Medical Center, including degenerative brain diseases, trauma and brain injury, diabetes and ethnic background, biomarkers and early genetic testing for breast and gastrointestinal cancer and biosurveillance (the TREAT computer system). Furthermore, a panel took place on Hospital-Community Interrelations with representatives from both Rabin Medical Center and from the community at-large.

Rabin Medical Center's senior management and medical staff were extremely interested in Dr. Federoff's lecture on "Systems Medicine", a field which seeks to comprehend the full range of complex biochemical, physiological and environmental interactions that sustain living organisms. Dr. Federoff emphasized that an understanding of how these complex interactions are mediated and how they can go awry is a key to finding new methods of early detection and medical intervention, aimed at preventing people from developing diseases they may be susceptible to later in life.

An additional collaborative step took place this month, when Dr. Halpern visited the Georgetown University Medical School to continue the dialogue with Dr. Federoff and his team. Following fruitful meetings with leading members of GUMC's staff and a fascinating talk by Dr. Halpern on: "Israel's Health System: An Overview", Dr. Halpern and Dr. Federoff decided that the first stage of cooperation between both institutions will focus on TREAT. TREAT is a computerized decision support system that recommends the correct antibiotic treatment to patients based on clinical, epidemiological and economical considerations, led at Rabin Medical Center by Prof. Leonard Leibovici, head of Beilinson's Department of Internal Medicine E.

We look forward to deepening the relationship between these two great institutions, and for success in our collaborative efforts.