Staj Explained: What Israeli Internship Looks Like
Staj is the full year of clinical rotations which all medical school graduates are required to complete before receiving their permanent licenses to practice medicine in Israel.
It is the equivalent of PGY1 in the US and FY1 in the UK.
Anyone making Aliyah directly after medical school, will need to complete Staj.
Entering the Israeli healthcare system as a Staj'er, is a challenging yet amazing opportunity to get familiar with the healthcare system from within, to improve your Hebrew in a supportive and structured program and to build your confidence before you are carrying significant responsibility.
In May 2025 a major reform to the Staj program was introduced, and is still in the process of being implemented. It is an important reform, bringing much-needed improvements to the standard of training, oversight and quality of the internship.
This blog will give you a good overview of how staj currently looks.
WHAT DOES STAJ INVOLVE?
STRUCTURE:
Staj is a 9 month clinical program, with mandatory rotations in core specialties and elective options to explore specialties of interest.
Prior to May 2025, it was a 12 month course, but major reforms have led to the reduction of pediatric and surgical rotations from 2 months to 1 month, and the removal of a full month of leave.
The 9 month internship is split as follows:
CORE SPECIALTIES: 7 months
Internal Medicine: 3 months
With 1 month Geriatric Medicine if available
Pediatric Medicine: 1 month
Emergency Medicine: 1 month
Surgery: 1 month
Selective month
In your allocated hospital
Can pick any department
ELECTIVE ROTATIONS: 2 months
This is an opportunity to work in the community or another hospital, ideally in a place that you are interested in doing residency. Many stajerim use this opportunity to try to make a good impression on the medical director / team who are responsible for accepting residency candidates.
These two elective months may become fully optional, particularly for interns who haven't yet decided on a specialty, with a focus on directing those opportunities towards underserved peripheral regions of the country
OVERSIGHT:
Oversight of the internship programme was previously managed by a Joint Internship Committee made up of Vice-Deans from Israel's four main medical schools (Hebrew University, Tel Aviv, Technion(Haifa) & Ben-Gurion), with each dean being responsibly for overseeing the internship in their designated geographical area.
With the new reform, the oversight is now being centralised and standardised, which is a very welcome change. Responsibility for managing the internship framework now belongs to the Ministry of Health's Division for Medical Professions Licensing, with a new Internship Committee to be established.
Together with this change, the new reform introduces stronger assessment of interns. Every intern will be regularly evaluated through computerised questionnaires and structured feedback sessions, creating a more transparent system with genuine opportunities for improvement along the way.
Important points:
All interns must begin their staj within one year of finishing their studies and complete the programme within two years at the latest.
The hospitals and clinics used for internships must be formally recognised by the Scientific Council of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA).
Interns are required to complete 4 on-call shifts per month in any department that runs doctor on-call rotas. The maximum is 6 shifts a month. These are 26 hour shifts, with the intern doing a normal day's work, staying to cover their ward overnight and then attending handover in the morning.
HOW IS STAJ ALLOCATED?
The Lottery
Staj positions are allocated through a computerised lottery, handled by the Ministry of Health.
Interns who meet the necessary criteria to apply for Staj must submit their hospital preferences via the online portal.
There are 25 hospitals in Israel that accept interns. Each graduate ranks these hospitals in order of preference, listing their top choice first. Graduates are then assigned a random lottery number, those with better numbers get to "claim" their preferred hospital first. As the process works through the numbers, the more popular hospitals fill up quickly, so graduates with bigger numbers may be allocated hospitals which are lower down their preference list.
Generally the system works well, with around 65% receiving their first choice and 15% receiving their second choice.
Those unhappy with their placement can appeal to an Exceptions Committee, which meets every two months.
Alternatively, interns can swap allocations with other interns who were in the same lottery draw.
Below is a graph showing first place preference for Inters in January 2026.
Raffle Dates
The raffle is held twice a year, in winter and summer. The next internship placement raffle will take place on June 30, with the portal open for submissions for a month prior.
There is a separate lottery for those who graduated from recognised international universities. This ensures an even dispersal of Israeli graduates and international graduates across the hospitals.
The new staj reform made a further important change, ensuring the placement lottery for graduates of overseas medical schools be held at two fixed points per year, rather than on an ad hoc basis.
Staj is exciting, it's a chance to finally practice all the knowledge and skills you've learnt and integrate into the healthcare system. Doing it as an oleh has its challenges but it's a new situation for everyone and you will hopefully find the support, understanding and encouragement that you need.
This blog gave an overview of how staj works, our next blog will cover the practicalities of applying for staj and the application criteria.
