Professor Mahmoud Abu Shakra is a specialist in internal medicine and autoimmune diseases of the connective tissue. He is also the first - and so-far only - Israeli Arab physician to be made a full professor.
by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
Professor Abu Shakra serves as a special role model for Arab students at Ben-Gurion University. But he remembers that when he was studying medicine at Tel Aviv University two decades ago, he had no role model for himself.
"Young Arab students often come to me for advice, and I try to give it to them. I make it clear that if they want to follow in my footsteps, they have to be completely devoted to their studies. Fortunately, I am able to tell them that that this effort is rewarded with accomplishments."
Born in Umm el-Fahm in the North of the country, Abu Shakra received his professorship from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's School of Medicine last year. He is pleased to say that he has never been exposed to any ethnic, religious, or racial discrimination, nor does he feel that he has to prove his abilities beyond those of his Jewish colleagues.
"I have patients who come to me from all over the country. I don't feel any antagonism between Arab and Jew. As a doctor, I see no ethnic differences: everyone is a patient who must be well treated."
He, his wife and their three children (aged nine, six and two) try to speak Arabic at home, even though the two older children study in Hebrew at the school at Kibbutz Hazerim as there is no Arab school in Be'er Sheva. The professor, who is fluent in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, adds that his is "not a religious family, but observes some traditions, ceremonies and holidays. The children join their classmates in wearing Purim costumes and lighting Hanukkah candles in school, but they understand that the Jewish holidays aren't their own."
Abu Shakra had originally intended to go into engineering, but the tragic sudden death of his mother - from heart failure at the age of 49 - drastically changed his plans. After graduating from Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine, he moved to Be'er Sheva for advanced medical training and then spent three years in Toronto, specializing in rheumatology and systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE.
One of numerous autoimmune diseases, SLE affects mostly women, who are usually diagnosed by the age of 30. As in other autoimmune diseases, the body mistakenly identifies normal cells as "foreign tissue", and so produces antibodies that attack them. There is no cure, and the disease is not well understood. "Once a person has lupus (SLE), it's for life," says Abu Shakra. But although the disease can be fatal if left untreated, there are treatments and medications that allow people to live with it.
There is increasing interest around the world in both autoimmune diseases and women's health; Professor Abu Shakra's research into SLE combines both. More than five years ago, he and five other rheumatologists established a special lupus clinic at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, conducting clinical studies which he hopes will eventually provide a cure for SLE and other debilitating autoimmune diseases, whether by gene therapy or other techniques.