Dr. Tamar Elram has been head of the 350-bed Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus since 2017. She leads a staff of 1,200, treating almost 300,000 patients each year. And she is at the helm of the hospital as it undergoes a huge, multifaceted expansion.

Dr. Elram relishes her clinical work. “Continuing to practice gynecology keeps my feet on the ground,” she says, “and my eyes at patient level.”

She notes, “You impact people in every encounter and must, therefore, always exercise your responsibility and authority in the best way you can. Treating patients is a privilege to be cherished, and so is leading Hadassah Mt. Scopus—especially now, as it embarks on a massive expansion.”

This expansion is the response of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah International, and the Hadassah Medical Organization to the medical needs of Jerusalem, which is among the country’s fastest-growing urban regions. Among the additions to the 86-year-old hospital campus are seven new buildings that “will change the skyline to the northeast of the city,” says Dr. Elram. They include the new $100 million flagship project of Hadassah International and Hadassah Australia, the eight-story Gandel Rehabilitation Center, slated to open in 2023. “Without exaggeration, it’s among the most important projects underway in Israel today,” notes Dr. Elram.

In the years since Dr. Elram took the reins, the hospital has renovated its emergency room and opened its first trauma unit. The number of births at Hadassah Mt. Scopus has increased by over 30 percent, thanks to a renovated and expanded delivery department. And, with financial support from the US Agency for International Development, the hospital has opened Hadassah’s first Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit and completed northern Jerusalem’s first Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, where 1,000 procedures are performed each year.

Read the full article by Wendy Elliman in the May 2022 issue of Hadassah Magazine to learn more about the hospital’s expansion plans and Dr. Elram’s leadership style, her role models, and her poetry.