Israeli Surgeon Visiting San Diego Recalls Medical Students Rushing to Help Oct. 7 Victims

Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, a typical student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Medical School for International Health wouldn’t be drawn to studying subjects such as the impact of traumatic injuries or how to respond to mass-casualty events. According to their line of thinking, why bother mastering those skills if you aren’t going to pursue a career as a trauma surgeon?

“Before Oct 7th, I was having a hard time persuading people about the need for training students in surgery at-large and particularly in trauma training,” recalled Dr. Zvi Perry, a senior surgeon at Soroka University Medical Center, the main teaching hospital affiliated with the university.

Oct. 7 dramatically changed their outlook, as students suddenly entered the operating theater in the most sensitive and urgent possible moment. With more than 1,200 people murdered by Hamas and over 240 taken hostage, that day produced the deadliest terrorist attack in Israeli history.

Mass casualty incidents are defined as disasters, either man-made or natural, in which local management agencies and the healthcare system are overwhelmed by the number and severity of casualties.

Simultaneously, Soroka University Medical Center found itself short-staffed due to the large portion of its staff that was immediately summoned to reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces following the attacks. From an emergency medicine perspective, “You found yourself in the middle of the worst nightmare you could possibly envision, with a lot less resources than you’d normally have,” Dr. Perry said.

On Oct. 7, which was a holiday in Israel, Perry was just returning from a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia. He touched down back in Israel at 4 a.m., and the terrorist attacks began with a bevy of rockets at 6:29 a.m. “Nobody really knew the magnitude of things” at the time, Perry said in an interview during his visit to San Diego in June, when he attended the annual meeting of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Soroka University Medical Center needed to reinvent itself on the fly and dramatically expand its capacity amid the overwhelming amount of severe, traumatic injuries suffered by Israelis on Oct. 7. The number of children treated at the facility that day was equivalent to the usual number treated in an entire year, Perry said.

The medical center’s emergency process entailed moving unsheltered hospital departments to more secure locations within five minutes of the first alarm; reinforcing the hospital’s teams, including retaining those who have completed a night shift in the emergency department; closing unprotected infrastructures, including eight operating rooms, catheterization rooms, and imaging devices; and rapidly discharging patients from vulnerable wards (maternity, geriatrics, and neonatal) to safer areas. Subsequently, Soroka launched a new surgical ward and intensive care unit, as well as an additional rehabilitation ward.

‘We’ve Had Our Baptism of Fire and Survived’

Eighty percent of Israelis killed in the Oct. 7 attacks were from the Negev region. Close to 3,000 were treated at the Soroka and Barzilai Medical Centers, and 200,000 Negev residents were displaced from their homes. Swiftly answering the call to action, more than 2,000 medical, nursing, and social work students from Ben-Gurion University volunteered in hospitals throughout Israel in the days immediately following the attacks, providing medical and psychological assistance to the thousands of injured Israelis and their families.

Sixth-year medical student Eyal Pasternak was one of the 500 student volunteers at Soroka University Medical Center immediately following the October 7th attacks.

“Already on Saturday, when the sirens started, students from the Faculty of Health Sciences — from medicine, nursing, emergency medicine, and more — with no coordination, simply left their houses and went to the Soroka hospital ER to see how they could help,” Pasternak said. “They integrated into the hospital’s medical teams and took part in saving the lives of casualties, and even participated in emergency surgeries.”

He added,“The volunteers also helped guide and organize the families who were looking for their loved ones. At night, they worked together with the army, government, and hospital staff to identify the unidentified wounded and locate their families. We also helped transport casualties in moderate condition to hospitals in other parts of the country and when needed, we moved the beds ourselves.

“We helped treat hundreds of wounded; we performed actions that helped save lives. The sights and smells will never leave us, but precisely because of this, we will be better practitioners. We’ve had our baptism of fire and survived; the people of Israel will get through this too.”

What Pasternak touches on is the theme of resilience, an attribute that has driven Israeli society’s recovery from the Oct. 7 attacks and particularly defines Ben-Gurion University’s role in the country’s recovery and rebuilding process. Given its location in the South of Israel, the university’s community has been disproportionately impacted by the Oct. 7 atrocities compared to other universities in Israel, in terms of the number of students, faculty, and staff who were killed, wounded, kidnapped, and called to reserve duty with the Israel Defense Forces.

And yet, the university is simultaneously rising to the challenges of this moment by spearheading the nation’s rebuilding and recovery. In addition to the thousands of Ben-Gurion University students who volunteered in hospitals, students and faculty members supported the families of Israeli Defense Force soldiers called up for reserve duty by looking after their children and maintaining their homes. University dormitories opened to families of casualties, evacuees, and army reservists, while evacuated families were also being hosted at the homes of faculty and staff. Dozens of students and staff members supported a massive logistical operation for sorting and preparing food and supplies contributions.

From a longer-term perspective, as the largest employer in the region, the university is key to the economic vitality of southern Israel and will play a pivotal role in rebuilding the Negev and propelling it forward.

“On October 6th, it was already evident that the future of Israel is in the South and that Ben-Gurion University would drive that future. On October 7th, BGU’s community was disproportionately affected by the attacks. In the days that followed, the University began demonstrating just how vital it is to the remarkable resilience of the entire nation,” said Doug Seserman, CEO of Americans for Ben-Gurion University.

Currently, A4BGU is galvanizing American supporters of the University into action through “Way Forward,” a $1 billion global fundraising campaign to strengthen the future of Israel through its south, with the university as the region’s anchor institution and engine for growth.

Ben-Gurion University Embraces the ‘Fifth Wave’ model

Ben-Gurion University’s prioritization of driving regional development mirrors a growing movement in American academia known as the “Fifth Wave” model, which integrates academia with community development, focusing on social, economic, cultural, and healthcare improvements. In this model, higher education institutions measure their success based on social outcomes in the regions where they are based.

The Fifth Wave model has been pioneered by Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow, including in his book, The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education. In fact, in May, Ben-Gurion University presented Crow with an honorary doctoral degree in recognition of his role as an innovator in higher education.

At the same time, ASU and BGU have partnered for 15 years with the goal of advancing the institutions’ contributions to advancement in areas including cyber-security, homeland security, nanotechnology, robotics, community medicine, remote sensing, and sustainability.

The Fifth Wave model is also reflected in the recent acquisition of Times of San Diego by NEWSWELL, the ASU-affiliated nonprofit that works to stabilize and strengthen local news outlets. NEWSWELL marks ASU’s effort to curb the phenomenon of “news deserts,” as more than half of the counties in the U.S. now have only one (or no) local news outlet.

‘It Can’t Happen to Us’

Moving forward, Ben-Gurion University understands that practice makes perfect and accordingly, the medical school will continue to train the next-generation of medical professionals who are prepared to serve on the front-lines of mass-casualty events and other crises. This helps ensure that attacks like the Oct. 7. massacre don’t catch us off guard.

Nonetheless, the fallacy of “it can’t happen to us” lingers, Dr. Perry explained. Even after 9/11, there are those in America who believe, “This can never happen in the U.S.” But he noted that attacks like February’s shooting Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl Parade, when 22 people were killed, demonstrate how we mustn’t let our guard down.

Dr. Perry said that medical students, through their contributions on Oct. 7 and still today during their ongoing training, serve to “sustain and advance the belief of our people, to believe that someone is there to care for them, to protect them, to aid them, and to heal them.”

Jacob Kamaras is the former editor and publisher of San Diego Jewish World.