Israeli professor elected president of World Medical Association

Head of Israeli Medical Association Leonid Eidelman voted in as head of the nine million-member organisation

The head of the Israeli Medical Association has been elected president of the World Medical Association, which has nine million members.

Professor Leonid Eidelman, who made aliyah from Latvia in 1987, is a specialist in intensive care and anaesthesia, and takes over a time of increasing pressure to expel Israel for allegedly “torturing” Palestinians.

Eidelman, 65, who manages the anaesthesiology department at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva, will take over from Japan’s Dr. Yoshitake Yokokura when he begins his stint next year.

Reacting, Eidelman said: “The fact that an Israeli doctor was elected to the most prestigious role in the world of medicine, with a great deal of influence on the most important decisions regarding the behaviour of doctors, is very significant.”

Eidelman, who is also a medical professor at Tel Aviv University, is an authority in the area of medical ethics in Israel, and has spoken out frequently against the force-feeding of hunger striking Palestinian prisoners.