Acclaimed physician named top aide to Health Ministry director-general

In his new post, he will coordinate the functioning of the ministry, promote inter-branch programs and lead in implementing important strategic processes, the ministry said.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: JUNE 17, 2015 02:12
Dr. Sefi Mendelovich (photo credit: Courtesy)
Dr. Sefi Mendelovich
(photo credit: Courtesy)
After the appointment of Moshe Bar Siman Tov as the first-ever non-physician Health Ministry director-general, the former Treasury official named Dr. Sefi Mendelovich of Shaare Zedek Medical Center as the chief of staff of the director-general’s office on Tuesday.
Mendelovich, a senior physician in the pediatric emergency department and Jerusalemite father of four, has for the past several months been an assistant to SZMC director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy and was a medical adviser to outgoing Health Ministry director-general Prof. Arnon Afek. He is set to begin at the ministry’s headquarters on July 1.
“Sefi is a rising star in Israeli medicine,” Halevy told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. “He is an excellent physician and administrator, honest, devoted and a man of values.”
Mendelovich founded the prestigious Inbar program, which is meant to create a future generation of leaders in the medical system. He earned a master’s degree in health system administration at Harvard University and completed a course for senior managers there.
He serves as a physician in an elite reserve unit of the Israel Defense Forces and fought in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer. He was a member of the IDF field hospital team that treated victims of the massive earthquake in Nepal for nearly three weeks in April.
In his new post, he will coordinate the functioning of the ministry, promote inter-branch programs and lead in implementing important strategic processes, the ministry said.
Deputy Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman congratulated Mendelovich on his appointment to the job, adding he was “certain he will succeed in his mission at the side of director- general Bar Siman Tov for the benefit of the health system.”
The new director-general, who was previously deputy director of the Finance Ministry’s budgets department and in charge of health budgets, said that he was busy building an active and professional team to advance the necessary reforms and strategic processes to benefit the public.
“Dr. Mendelovich, who is among the most devoted and ethical physicians in the system, will be the central figure in the team,” said Bar Siman Tov.
The Israel Medical Association, which opposed Litzman’s appointment of Bar Siman Tov’s last week “as a matter of principle” because he is not a physician and lacks medical training, has not commented on Mendelovich’s appointment.