ELIAKIM, MARCEL

ELIAKIM, MARCEL (1921– ), physician and medical educator. Eliakim was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He studied in an American high school and graduated from a French high school in Bulgaria in 1943. He then began studies at the University of Sofia Medical School (1944–49). He immigrated to Israel in 1949 and graduated from the Hebrew University–Hadassah Medical School (first class, 1949–52) with distinction. He served in the scientific corps of the Israel Defense Forces from 1952 to 1954, where he was assigned to conduct a research project on Schistosomiasis in Israel.

Eliakim started working in the Department of Medicine of the Hadassah University Hospital under Professor M. Rachmilewitz in 1954, and became full professor of medicine in 1969. He then became head of the Department of Medicine (1969–89). After retirement from Hadassah, Eliakim became head of the Department of Medicine in Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem (1989–97).

During the period 1960–61 Eliakim received a grant from the American army for research in cardiovascular physiology in the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. Upon his return to Israel he founded and was the first director of the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Training of the Hebrew University. He also became chairman of the Board of Medicine of the Israel Medical Association in 1973. He served on the committee of higher education of the Ministry of Education (1976–79) and became dean of the Faculty of Medicine (1985–89). Eliakim founded the Israel Association for the Study of the Liver in 1973.

Eliakim published 221 scientific papers and wrote or edited four books. His research was concentrated in the field of Familial Mediterranean Fever, a disease affecting mostly Jews. Eliakim has educated a generation of physicians, many of whom have become leaders in medicine in Israel. Eliakim received many prizes, most important of which was the 75^th Hadassah Anniversary prize for outstanding service in medicine (1987). He received the Worthy of Jerusalem award (1988) and the Israel Prize for medicine 2001.

[Rami Eliakim (2^nd ed.)]