Introduction

The heavy teaching commitment of this department includes one-to-one tutoring of medical students in a large variety of practices both urban and rural during the compulsory clinical clerkship in family medicine, as well as participation in courses in behavioral sciences in the preclinical years. The department is also responsible for the regional three-year compulsory day release course for specialist training in family medicine for 140 residents, and provides CME courses for 160 general practitioners.
All 90 members of the department are part time.
Our department is particularly popular as an elective for interns, and we frequently welcome overseas students seeking an exposure to primary care in Israel.

History:
The Department of Family Medicine of the Sackler Medical School in the Tel Aviv University was the first of its kind in Israel. It was established as an independent department within the new medical school as a brainchild of the founding dean, Prof. Andre de Vries in 1967. Jack Medalie well known for pioneering academic family medicine in the only other medical school at the time - Hebrew University-Hadassah in Jerusalem - was invited to head the department. Outstanding general practitioners in the greater Tel Aviv area were identified and prepared for the role of teachers. A small number of key teaching clinics based on the comprehensive team model of family physician-family nurse-medical social worker were set up in preparation for formal specialist training in family practice which was launched in accordance with the Israeli specialization law in 1970.When Prof. Medalie was invited to be the founding chairman of the department of family medicine at Case Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland, Ohio, Prof. Max Polliack took over as head of the department. He was instrumental in raising the prestige of family medicine specialists by championing the discipline at the highest professional levels in the Scientific Council of the Israel Medical Association.He expanded the day release course to include parallel CME courses for established general practitioners. Under his leadership the department burgeoned and teaching became more skilled. Following Prof. Polliack's term of office, Prof. Michael Weingarten became the first Israel trained family physician to head a department of family medicine. His contribution was to develop the research base of the department, starting with a research group. He introduced a Master in Family Medicine program for the more talented and creative residents. Prof Eliezer Kitai, himself a Sackler graduate, is the current chairman. He is leading the department into the era of distance learning.