This article from Haaretz.com points to an interesting program developed by the head of medical classification in Israel's IDF, Lieutenant Colonel Arnon Ofek, and the Medical Instruction Center at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. It is
- a course for physicians to improve their proficiency in making personal contact with the draftees. At the height of the hard fighting on the northern border, the first group, consisting of 12 physicians from induction centers arrived at Sheba for a practical workshop. This was the follow-up to a theoretical workshop, which was held a few weeks earlier...
Ofek says, "The success of the training program will be tested by the young people who go through the induction centers in the form of feedback questionnaires. Afterward we will process the questionnaires and take lessons from them. The professional research, which will be the end of the process, will point to the optimal way to integrate the IDF's needs with maximum attention to the young people, who are going through a sensitive and tempestuous period of their lives - adolescence.
The workshop sounds fascinating: It includes working with mannequins and actors, videotaping and debriefing. I'd be curious to know if what works in the classroom can translate into the less-than-ideal reality of crowded centers and real teen angst.
