Col. Dr. Avraham Yitzhak has been chosen by the Judging Committee for the Outstanding Alumni Award 2018. The Committee has chosen six BGU graduates from varying Faculties and Departments, and from all degrees.
Dr. Yitzhak is a graduate of two Faculties of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: from the Faculty of Health Sciences' Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School, and from the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management's Department of Health Systems Management.
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Colonel Dr. Yitzhak began his medical career as an excelling student in Ethiopia, and at the age of 15 was already studying medicine at the University of Addis Ababa. In 1991 he was forced to flee the country in the midst of a civil war and arrived in Israel at the age of 18. A year later, he was admitted to the Ben-Gurion University Medical School as a participant of the academic military reserve program. As such, Avraham became the first medical student in the State of Israel, who came from Ethiopia.
During Operation Protection Edge, Dr. Yitzhak served as a physician in the Gaza Division and later as Head of the Operational Medical Branch, where he led a process of improving the medical response on the battlefield together with the Digital Innovation Center (CDI) at the Science Park in Beer Sheva.
Dr. Yitzhak has contributed to the advancement of medical response on the battlefield, both in research and in practice. He has many years of service in various positions in the Medical Corps and on loan to the Ministry of Health
In his speech as the representative of the Masters Degree students at the graduation ceremony in 2017, Dr. Yitzhak noted: "A master's degree in management is a milestone that has important professional significance for us, enabling us to understand management as a process or as a collection of actions aimed at leadership for optimal change. In addition, this gives us an understanding that we live in a world of limited resources in which the essential elements must be recognized and their uses learned."
Col. Yitzhak today is the Commanding Medical Officer of the IDF Southern Command.
