The army has been given a stage in American academia from which it can share its
worldview effectively, Maj. Oded Hershkovich of the IDF Medical Corps
told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Hershkovich was one of six members in
the IDF delegation that arrived in the US at the end of last month for a major
international medical conference hosted by Tufts University in Boston.
Delegations of medical experts and students from all over the world, including
the Gaza Strip and Iraq, also attended.
During the event, the commander
of the Medical Corps, Brig.-Gen. Itzik Kreis, received an award for his
outstanding humanitarian work and delivered a keynote speech in which he
outlined the IDF’s global medical assistance efforts.
The conference,
which focused this year on global health and security, was an opportunity to
share medical knowledge and learn from others, Hershkovich said.
“There
were first-class lecturers, discussing issues from the human genome, responses
to water and starvation crises, and ways to combat violence against women,” he
added.
The IDF delegation shared experiences from its work during its
rescue mission to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake disaster, and received
many questions about the Israeli field hospital that provided vital assistance
to injured Haitians.
“We tried to understand what worked and what went
wrong in the international effort for Haiti,” Hershkovich said.
“We saw
that our mission to Haiti garnered appreciation.”
Dialogue with others is
easier in such meetings as opposed to political events, Hershkovich
said.
“The fact that we come from the medical world helped us transmit
our view.
This was a big advantage,” he added.