Dr. Rahamimov

Partnership 2000, the United Jewish Communities’ international agenda that matches communities in Israel with those in the United States for mutually beneficial activities, has succeeded where similar programs have not. Begun several years ago, P2K divides America into 12 geographic regions and pairs them with regions in Israel. Louisville’s Jewish Community Federation is one of 13 Federations in mid-western cities that make up a consortium that supports P2K projects in the Western Galilee area of northern Israel, which includes the city of Acco and the Western Galilee Hospital in Naharia.

In Louisville’s case, P2K has led to the sharing of resources in business, education and medicine and to the creation of lasting relationships between our community and our partners in Israel.

One of the first programs developed as part of P2K began in 1998, when five physicians from the Western Galilee’s 600-bed hospital in Naharia visited Jewish Hospital here and made plans to create an ongoing exchange of visits and information between the two hospitals.

That same year, Dr. David Rouben, an orthopedic surgeon, and his wife, Maxine, joined the Federation’s Mission of a Lifetime to Israel. While visiting the western Galilee, he met Dr. Danny Laor, administrator of Medical Services at Western Galilee Hospital, who asked him to teach new spinal surgery techniques to physicians there.

In 1999, the hospital created a spine surgery service and hired 38-year-old Dr. Nimrod Rahamimov, to be its head. Rahamimov was told of the hospital’s relationship with Jewish Hospital in Louisville, and he contacted Rouben about a return visit. A flurry of e-mail messages resulted in Rouben, together with his wife, two nurses and another surgeon, returning to Israel in 2000 to demonstrate landmark spinal surgery distinguished by its high rate of success and potential for shortened hospital stays.

At Rouben’s invitation, the 42-year old Rahamimov came to Louisville on Tuesday, October 28, to observe Rouben and learn how to perform a radically new operative procedure for individuals with disabling conditions of the lower back necessitating spinal fusion. The new process significantly lessens pain, allows the patient to return home within 23 hours after surgery and to resume normal activities within a week of the procedure. Skin is glued together so there are no sutures or staples to remove or home nursing wound care required.

Rahamimov says the new “revolutionary” surgery is performed in just two places in the United States: Louisville and Minnesota. When he returns to Naharia, where he says his six-bed spine surgery unit has a 150 percent occupancy rate, Rahamimov will be the first surgeon outside of the United States and Canada to be trained and skilled in the procedure. He is one of just 30 spinal surgeons in all of Israel.

While in Louisville, Rahamimov attended the Jewish Hospital Medical Staff Quarterly Meeting, met with members of the hospital’s administrative staff and Federation staff took him on a tour of Jewish Louisville. As secretary of the Israeli Spine Society, he has asked Rouben to be the keynote speaker at the society’s 2004 National Conference in Eilat in March.

  Tevet 5764 - January 2004