Israeli physicians and scientists leave the country for fellowships, postdoctoral work, medical school and research jobs that can last several years. Overseas hospitals and institutions may offer them positions, salaries can be higher and their children begin building lives abroad. By the time they consider returning, a temporary move may have become permanent.
ScienceAbroad works to keep those departures from becoming permanent. The Israel-based nonprofit was founded in 2006 to support Israeli scientists and physicians before they leave, while they work overseas and when they consider coming back. Its programs include medicine, biotechnology, engineering and academia communities, conferences, webinars, job listings, employer introductions. They also coordinate flight grants and help navigate with Israeli bureaucracy. Nadav Douani, ScienceAbroad’s CEO since September 2019, is leading those efforts.
“They’re spending another two to three years abroad, and the kids grow up,” Douani told The Journal. “They’re becoming American or Canadian citizens. They may try to come back to Israel, but they’re staying abroad.”
Douani, a former senior advisor in Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology, said ScienceAbroad’s mission is to bring Israeli physicians and researchers home and connect them with Israel’s healthcare and scientific institutions. He also sees a return to Israel as a chance for physicians to serve patients through the country’s public healthcare system.
ScienceAbroad estimates that about 70% of the scientists who have participated in its overseas communities have not returned to Israel. A 2024 study of 297 Israeli physicians who pursued fellowships abroad found that 156, or 52.5%, were living outside Israel at the time of the survey. Forty-eight of those physicians had completed their fellowships and remained abroad. Among those physicians who remained abroad, 69% reported medium or low confidence that they would return. Higher salaries, Israel’s political and social climate and better work-life balance were the leading factors encouraging them to stay overseas. A guaranteed job in Israel was associated with 8.6 times greater odds of high confidence in returning. A position that would use skills acquired during the fellowship was associated with 3.5 times greater odds.
Douani said physicians may find higher salaries and a different work-life balance in the United States. In Israel, he said, shifts can last 24 or 36 hours. “So this is a gap that we in Israel were not able to cover,” Douani said.
ScienceAbroad works with two groups in medicine: physicians who leave Israel for fellowships and Israeli students who attend medical school in Europe. Douani said Israel does not have enough medical-school seats for every qualified applicant. The Knesset Education Committee reported in 2025 that 1,448 students were expected to begin medical school in Israel during the 2025–26 academic year, compared with about 1,100 in 2023–24. The Health Ministry has set a goal of training 2,000 first-year medical students per year by 2030. “A lot of Israelis are moving to Europe, to the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Romania, those kinds of countries, to learn to be physicians over there,” Douani said. Some Israeli students spend five or six years studying medicine in Europe before returning to take Israel’s licensing examination.
Douani said a Ministry of Health loan program can reduce or forgive tuition debt for physicians who return to needed specialties or regions. A physician entering geriatrics at Ziv Medical Center in northern Israel may qualify for full support, while a doctor entering a field with less demand in central Israel may have to repay the loan. “So the Israeli government tries to encourage people by paying almost all their tuition, this is the word, by paying all the tuition, but it depends what they’re going to do,” Douani said.
Douani said while returning physicians can work in Israel’s public and private healthcare systems, Israel cannot match some American salaries. “If you’re a physician and you are obligated to the oath and you see yourself as someone that serves everyone and wants to save lives and help people to have a better life, in Israel you can do that,” Douani said.
Patients in Israel’s public system can wait three to six months for some specialists, Douani said. Patients who pay for private care may receive an appointment within a week. Asked whether Israel was prepared to meet the demand for mental-health care created by war, attacks and years of rocket fire, Douani gave a direct answer. “No, it’s very simple,” Douani said. Wounded soldiers, survivors of the attacks in southern Israel and children raised under rocket fire need care.
“We say all the time that Israel is a country in a trauma, that we are all suffering in some way from a trauma,” Douani said. “So I can say this is a very radical way of saying that, but I’m saying that people need help, and unfortunately there is not enough.”
Douani said medication alone could not meet the full need. “This is not a way to support,” Douani said. “You need to take care of their health, their mental health by understanding and give them ways to support that.” The ScienceAbroad Global Israeli Applied Science Symposium is scheduled for Sept. 8, in Tel Aviv, with online participation available. The agenda includes research in medical imaging, cancer immunotherapy, genome editing, robotics, tremor treatment, brain stimulation involving ADHD and PTSD drug development.
“We are on our side doing two missions,” Douani said. “One is to bring back those Israelis that move abroad to do their fellowship, make sure they’re not staying and stuck. This is one. Second, is to have the Israelis that move abroad to do their Israeli students that move to Europe and bring them back, convince them to come back to Israel. I think it’s a privilege to live in Israel, work in Israel, raising your kids here, feeling safe, even though sometimes we’re under a war here, but you feel safe in the street, and this is important.”
