- Email: [email protected]
David Applebaum
OBITUARY
Obituary
Shaare Zedek Hospital
David Applebaum A rabbi and emergency room doctor who treated victims of dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and revolutionised Israeli emergency care. Born Dec 27, 1952, in Detroit, Michigan, USA; died on Sept 9, 2003, in Jerusalem, Israel, aged 50 years.
ver the years, David Applebaum had treated hundreds of victims of suicide bomb attacks in and around Jerusalem. But on Sept 9, he and his daughter, Nava, themselves became victims of such an attack as they sat talking in a Jerusalem cafe on what was supposed to be the night before Nava’s wedding. Five others were killed in the bombing, and 57 people were injured. Applebaum, who was director of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital, was credited with transforming Israeli emergency medicine, which became an official medical specialty only last year in that country. He accomplished a great deal by finding pragmatic and sometimes simple solutions to the difficulties facing emergency departments. “Immediately upon taking up his post in the crucial 50-bed [Shaare Zedek] emergency department, Applebaum shook things up”, Judy Siegel-Itzkovich wrote in the Jerusalem Post in June. “Noting that staffers sometimes congregated for a chat and a cup of coffee in a small room behind a closed door, he removed the door, sending it off for ‘repair’. It never came back. Now everybody who is on duty in the newly energised department is always ready for action.” At an urgent care clinic he founded, he brought in a clown to entertain patients. He also introduced technology to the emergency department, including an online information system for patients that also flagged patients who had been waiting too long to be seen by doctors. While in New York attending a conference on terror attacks just one day before he was killed, Applebaum used the system to let staff in Jerusalem gently know that patients were not being treated in a timely fashion, Shaare Zedek nurse Nechama Kaufman told The New York Times. Despite the fact that his daughter was to be married on Wednesday, Applebaum spoke at the conference on Monday. He was also a proponent of thrombolysis for myocardial infarction. He published about 30 papers on subjects ranging from care in the emergency room to the implications of Jewish law for medicine.
O
Ivan Oransky e-mail: [email protected]
Born in Detroit, Michigan, USA, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, in 1972. Applebaum was ordained at Chicago’s Brisk Rabbinical College in 1974, and also that year earned a master’s degree in biological sciences at Northwestern University, also in Chicago. In 1978, he graduated from the Medical College of Ohio, and went on to complete a residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. After his residency, he emigrated to Israel, where he began working with Magen David Adom, the Israeli ambulance rescue service. Applebaum worked at Shaare Zedek from 1985 to 1988. He founded the Terem Immediate Care Clinic in Jerusalem, for urgent but not severe cases, which is credited with reducing the burden on emergency rooms. Terem’s six clinics now treat 100 000 patients per year. He returned to Shaare Zedek as director of the emergency room in 2002. Applebaum was on call 24 h a day, 7 days a week, including the Jewish Sabbath, when he would walk to the hospital or have a non-Jewish driver take him there. The Israeli Knesset gave Applebaum the Quality of Life Award in 1986 for treating terror victims on King George Street in Jerusalem while bullets continued to fly around him. “There are thousands of citizens of Jerusalem who owe their lives to Dr Applebaum”, said Shaare Zedek director-general Professor Jonathan Halevy in a statement released after Applebaum’s death. “This is a very heavy loss for this city.” Applebaum is survived by his wife, Debra, and five children—Natan, Yitzhak, Shira, Shayna, and Tovi Belle. Nava had followed in her father’s footsteps, spending her 2 years’ compulsory service caring for children with cancer. “His staff, in Romema, Ma’aleh Adumim, Modi’in, and other Terem branches, loved, respected, and learned from him”, Siegel-Itzkovich wrote in the Jerusalem Post after his death. “His urgent care standards have inspired a cadre of US boardtrained physicians in the specialty, and together they have helped elevate the level of services all around the country.”
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • September 27, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.
1083
Obituary
Shaare Zedek Hospital
David Applebaum A rabbi and emergency room doctor who treated victims of dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and revolutionised Israeli emergency care. Born Dec 27, 1952, in Detroit, Michigan, USA; died on Sept 9, 2003, in Jerusalem, Israel, aged 50 years.
ver the years, David Applebaum had treated hundreds of victims of suicide bomb attacks in and around Jerusalem. But on Sept 9, he and his daughter, Nava, themselves became victims of such an attack as they sat talking in a Jerusalem cafe on what was supposed to be the night before Nava’s wedding. Five others were killed in the bombing, and 57 people were injured. Applebaum, who was director of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital, was credited with transforming Israeli emergency medicine, which became an official medical specialty only last year in that country. He accomplished a great deal by finding pragmatic and sometimes simple solutions to the difficulties facing emergency departments. “Immediately upon taking up his post in the crucial 50-bed [Shaare Zedek] emergency department, Applebaum shook things up”, Judy Siegel-Itzkovich wrote in the Jerusalem Post in June. “Noting that staffers sometimes congregated for a chat and a cup of coffee in a small room behind a closed door, he removed the door, sending it off for ‘repair’. It never came back. Now everybody who is on duty in the newly energised department is always ready for action.” At an urgent care clinic he founded, he brought in a clown to entertain patients. He also introduced technology to the emergency department, including an online information system for patients that also flagged patients who had been waiting too long to be seen by doctors. While in New York attending a conference on terror attacks just one day before he was killed, Applebaum used the system to let staff in Jerusalem gently know that patients were not being treated in a timely fashion, Shaare Zedek nurse Nechama Kaufman told The New York Times. Despite the fact that his daughter was to be married on Wednesday, Applebaum spoke at the conference on Monday. He was also a proponent of thrombolysis for myocardial infarction. He published about 30 papers on subjects ranging from care in the emergency room to the implications of Jewish law for medicine.
O
Ivan Oransky e-mail: [email protected]
Born in Detroit, Michigan, USA, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, he graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, in 1972. Applebaum was ordained at Chicago’s Brisk Rabbinical College in 1974, and also that year earned a master’s degree in biological sciences at Northwestern University, also in Chicago. In 1978, he graduated from the Medical College of Ohio, and went on to complete a residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. After his residency, he emigrated to Israel, where he began working with Magen David Adom, the Israeli ambulance rescue service. Applebaum worked at Shaare Zedek from 1985 to 1988. He founded the Terem Immediate Care Clinic in Jerusalem, for urgent but not severe cases, which is credited with reducing the burden on emergency rooms. Terem’s six clinics now treat 100 000 patients per year. He returned to Shaare Zedek as director of the emergency room in 2002. Applebaum was on call 24 h a day, 7 days a week, including the Jewish Sabbath, when he would walk to the hospital or have a non-Jewish driver take him there. The Israeli Knesset gave Applebaum the Quality of Life Award in 1986 for treating terror victims on King George Street in Jerusalem while bullets continued to fly around him. “There are thousands of citizens of Jerusalem who owe their lives to Dr Applebaum”, said Shaare Zedek director-general Professor Jonathan Halevy in a statement released after Applebaum’s death. “This is a very heavy loss for this city.” Applebaum is survived by his wife, Debra, and five children—Natan, Yitzhak, Shira, Shayna, and Tovi Belle. Nava had followed in her father’s footsteps, spending her 2 years’ compulsory service caring for children with cancer. “His staff, in Romema, Ma’aleh Adumim, Modi’in, and other Terem branches, loved, respected, and learned from him”, Siegel-Itzkovich wrote in the Jerusalem Post after his death. “His urgent care standards have inspired a cadre of US boardtrained physicians in the specialty, and together they have helped elevate the level of services all around the country.”
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • September 27, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.
1083