[The beginnings of orthopedic surgery in Israel]

In early mandatory Israel, orthopedics was mainly conservative, The first modern orthopedic surgeon was Ernst Spira from Czechoslovakia who established an orthopedic service at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva and left in 1948 to establish the Orthopedic Department and the Rehabilitation Center in Tel Hashomer, which treated the War of Independence casualties including amputees and victims of spinal cord injuries. A second orthopedic department was opened in Tel Hashomer by Shmuel Weissman who left in 1961 to open the Orthopedic Department at the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv. Shmuel Weissman became the first Chairman of Orthopedic Surgery at the Tel Aviv University medical school. In 1955, Myer Makin opened a modern orthopedic department in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and the Alyn Hospital for crippled children. In 1951, Assaf Harofeh Hospital opened the Department of Orthopedic Surgery headed by Anatol Axer who specialized in the treatment and rehabilitation of polio patients. The majority of the second generation of orthopedic department directors was trained by these four surgeons. Major developments in the 1960s and 1970s were the introduction of the AO system revolutionizing fracture treatment from conservative to operative treatment, the advent of total hip and knee replacements, Harrington instrumentation in spinal surgery and arthroscopy were major advances in orthopedic patient care brought to Israel by the aforementioned second generation of orthopedic surgeons. Hand surgery became an independent subspecialty of orthopedics and was lead by the internationally renowned hand surgeon, Isidore Kessler.