Dr. Israel intended to be a doctor from the time she was a little girl, but it was not until her mother died of breast cancer during her teens that she knew why she wanted to be a doctor. “Communication is one of the most important factors when families face difficult decisions,” Dr. Israel reflects. “Not every decision a physician makes is medical, yet it is all good medicine.”
Right out of medical college Dr. Israel planned to specialize in oncology, but her memories and emotions were too raw. With guidance from her grandfather, Dr. Israel became board certified in internal medicine, geriatrics, and palliative and hospice care. “The field of palliative and hospice care was just emerging when I did my fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital,” she reflects. “I knew I had found my niche.” Dr. Israel has been leading the outpatient geriatrics program at Monmouth Medical Center for four years and started New Jersey’s first and only outpatient palliative care practice. “Over the years I have learned that it is okay to let my patients know how much I care.”
Dr. Israel was the keynote speaker just a few months ago at the Drexel University College of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony that marks the medical students’ transition from preclinical studies to clinical care. “It was a great honor but also a challenge to tell others what it means to be a doctor,” she recalls. “For me it is bearing witness to the lives of others and knowing that I can make a difference.”
There are lots of ways to measure the quality of a physician, but Dr. Israel says the greatest accolade she could receive would be “to walk across the hospital lobby and overhear someone say about her, she is a good doctor, she took care of my mother.
Dr. Israel has been chronicling her professional journey in personal writings for many years. In May 2007, one of her essays was published in the New York Times. Visit www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/health/22case.html to read her powerful story about a young life lost.
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Jessica Israel, MD
