David Shoseyov, MD

By Hillel Kuttler

David Shoseyov, MD, exudes pride while discussing the Hadassah Medical Center, a famous hospital on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem where he practices pediatric pulmonology. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve worked,” says Dr. Shoseyov, 58, as his face lights up.

Revered German-Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn designed the hospital’s main building in the 1930s. Dr. Shoseyov’s pediatrics department and its chronic diseases center four flights below is reached through a looping, glassed-in walkway extending off the main lobby, referred to as “the mushroom.” Smiley faces and youthful handprints dot the six-year-old center’s floors.

“The center was started by my colleague Prof. Eitan Kerem, MD,” Dr. Shoseyov says. “He had the vision that it would be a home for pediatric patients with related conditions. If a patient, for example, has lung disease, he may also have nutritional and gastro-intestinal issues. He can see a dietician here, a physiotherapist, and a social worker.”

Dr. Shoseyov starts each day at Hadassah at about 7:30 a.m., works until late afternoon, then drives an hour west to Rehovot to work at the Weizmann Institute of Science laboratory until 9 p.m. Shoseyov primarily conducts research at Hadassah, but he also runs a Friday clinic at Weizmann.

His research focuses on the role of phospholipase A2 family in asthma and the effect of leukotriens receptor antagonist on asthma in a rat model. “I try to work outside the box and identify basic knowledge and facts, not just find some inhibitor,” Dr. Shoseyov says. “If I find one, it’d be nice, but I try to understand the whole work of phospholipase.”

Dr. Shoseyov is also in the midst of developing a noninvasive pulmonary function test, instrument, or machine. “What exists on the market is only an invasive machine,” he says. “I want to give patients treatment in a noninvasive way, without causing such damage.”

He recently determined the model’s success and plans to submit his study to the AJRCCM orAJRCMB.

“When you do research, you’re a better doctor,” Dr. Shoseyov explains. “The combination of medical research and clinical work builds a doctor with better experience. This is a lesson I got from L.A. Children’s Hospital. I wasn’t aware of research in my training in Israel.”

Among his accomplishments, Dr. Shoseyov has raised three children with his wife, Nurit, a family practice physician. His daughter Noa is a fourth-year medical student who recently completed a pediatrics rotation under her dad at Hadassah. “I tried to avoid it, but she was forced to come,” Dr. Shoseyov says.

In his free time, Shoseyov and his brother Oded run the family’s 40-acre winery in the central-Israeli town of Carmei Yosef.

Dr. Shoseyov appreciates being an ATS member for the International Conference’s professional stimulation and the opportunity to compare notes with far-flung colleagues. He estimates the conference in San Francisco will be his 15th.

“The conference addresses excellence in clinical and scientific innovations,” Dr. Shoseyov says. “I always describe the conference as akin to putting a child in Toys R Us and saying, ‘Take everything!’

“It opens your mind to new ideas. There are young people there who are so bright. I travel so far from Israel just to find one exciting idea, and it’s worth it. It brings me wonderful ideas on how to work and also how to collaborate with other researchers.”

Title Senior Physician and Advisor on Pediatric Lung Disease, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem
Chair, Israeli Cystic Fibrosis Council’s Medical Advisory Committee
Medical Education Sapienza University, Rome
Pediatric Pulmonology Fellowship Children’s Hospital Los Angeles,
Born Tel Aviv, Israel