Prof. Shavit
Prof. ShavitHadassah Hospital

Professor Itai Shavit has been appointed Director of the Pediatrics Division at Hadassah Medical Center. In his position, he replaces Prof. Shimon Reif, who served in the position for the past two years.

Prof. Shavit, one of Israel's leading physicians in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, is a Technion Faculty of Medicine graduate. He specialized in pediatrics at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, and continued to complete an additional specialty in Pediatric Emergency Medicine in Calgary, Canada.

In his last position, Prof. Shavit served as Director of the Department of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Rambam Health Care Campus and as Chairman of Rambam's Research Committee of the Pediatrics Division.

Prof. Shavit is one of the founders of the field of Pediatric Emergency Medicine in Israel and one of the contributors to its transformation into a recognized specialty. In his department at Rambam, many doctors were trained as specialists in this field, some of whom became directors of Pediatric Emergency Departments themselves. Prof. Shavit serves as Chairman of the Israel Society for Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEMI) of the Israel Medical Association.

At the Technion, Prof. Shavit served as Academic Chairman of Emergency Medicine. He created and led courses in the preclinical and clinical academic programs and was involved in both clinical teaching and supervising MD students at the Technion and MA and PhD students at the University of Haifa. In addition, Prof. Shavit established the Simulation Laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion as a research laboratory. In 2015 he was awarded a certificate of appreciation from the Faculty of Medicine for his outstanding contribution to teaching.

Prof. Shavit leads the Israel Pediatric Emergency Research Network (ISPERN), the research group of the Society for Pediatric Emergency Medicine. His research focuses on the field of acute procedural pain in children, advanced technologies in pediatric resuscitation, and epidemiological analysis of urgent pediatric conditions. He has published over 120 articles internationally in leading scientific journals such as JAMA, JAMA Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Annals of Emergency Medicine, and Resuscitation.

Upon assuming office, Prof. Shavit said that a quote from Louis Pasteur is what leads his professional path: "When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become."

Hadassah Director General, Prof. Yoram Weiss, congratulated Prof. Shavit on joining the Medical Center. "Itai is a real asset for the children and their families, but also for the teams in all the departments he will lead. His professionalism, diagnostic sharpness, humanity, and compassion, and the development of the field of pediatrics in Israel over the past decades are to his credit. I am sure that he will use them wonderfully and qualitatively at Hadassah as well."