New Israel council elected

Morsi Khashan

Chairperson (till 30 June 2026)

I am head of the spine surgery service in the orthopedic wing at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv University. I specialize in adult deformity and minimally invasive spinal surgery. I am committed to promoting and improving the AO Spine Israel's academic profile. I aspire to strengthen AO Spine's position as the leading educational body for residents and young spine surgeons in the country and to increase the number of members particularly among residents.

Looking ahead, my goal is to promote closer collaboration with other local AO communities and with the Israeli Spine Society and align our efforts to offer valuable and attractive educational events.
Furthermore, I am dedicated to fostering collaboration with regional AO Spine communities, building professional and personal relationships between Israeli spine surgeons and their counterparts in our region. By building these connections, we can create a stronger network of support and expertise and ultimately advance spine surgery education across borders.

Shadi Hayek

AO Spine Israel – Neurosurgery Officer (till 30 June 2026)

I'm in my 40's and I'm the first MD graduate in my family, that comes, I believe, after a personal experience with my mother, she underwent a spinal surgery for tumor resection when I was young boy, I think it remained imprinted in my brain. So, I did my neurosurgical residency and it wasn't an easy one, like in many other places. I had a good lesson about spine tumors and I feel confident managing this topic. What I felt that was missing during my residency is the precise exposure to spine trauma, management, treatment and follow up. I had a few courses with the AOspine in Israel and a few more with the EANS in Europe. Then I did my fellowship and had a better exposure to this field.

These days I'm teaching our residents about spine trauma and other topics as well, and this is the first thing that I would like to promote; education, teaching and discussing cases with neurosurgical residents.

I'm also eager to host and plan courses in the middle east or abroad to discuss and share knowledge from another point of view for different complex cases. Unfortunately, due to the political and the security situation in the middle east, I'm not sure if it's gonna be easy to execute. Hopefully that thing calms down in the future.

Shay Menachem

AO Spine Israel - Orthopedics Officer (till 30 June 2026)

I am an orthopaedic spine surgeon at the Rambam healthcare campus.

I was trained in orthopaedic surgery at the Sheba medical center, Tel hashomer, and underwent fellowship training in complex spine surgery at Macquarie University Hospital, Sydney, Australia, and The prince of wales hospital, Sydney, Australia.

My goals are to enhance continuing education for orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons who are interested in spine surgery, promote research collaboration locally and internationally and create educational opportunities in spine surgery for doctors in training.