No longer would I be a businessman who squeezed in some medical consulting between meetings. From now on, I realized, I had to devote the bulk of my day to medical advocacy

Yossi Erblich, founder of L’ma’anchem, a medical referral service

Most kids grow up with a rosy picture of the medical world: Someone gets sick. He visits the doctor. The doctor prescribes the right medicine, or performs the right procedure, and the patient lives happily ever after.

I was just 17 years old when I got my first inkling that things aren’t quite that simple.

I was always an out-of-the-box thinker, someone who did things my own way. I was born in Belgium and grew up in Tel Aviv, a background that expanded my horizons and afforded me knowledge of different cultures and lifestyles. I learned in Ponevezh and was still in my twenties when I got my first job as assistant to then-health minister of Israel Tzachi Hanegbi.

When I was just 22 years old, my uncle, the Rebbe of Pinsk-Karlin, required open-heart surgery. Back then it was considered very intimidating, and the entire family was almost paralyzed with fear. I went to visit him, and he told me, “Yossi, I want you to take care of this. You’re going to be the one to research all the options and find the best hospital and doctor for my surgery.”

I almost stopped breathing for a moment — and then I faced the challenge head-on. The Rebbe had commanded; I had my marching orders. And so I became the family’s address for all the questions that inevitably arise in these kinds of situations: whose opinion to rely on, which hospital to use, which doctor was best.

By the time my uncle had successfully completed his surgery, I’d learned something very sobering: that along with excellent practitioners and hospitals, Israel’s health-care system has many gray areas, and that not everyone automatically receives the right care.

Over the ensuing years, even after I settled in Bnei Brak, established a family, and got involved in my family’s real-estate business, I kept getting phone calls. Friends, neighbors, and relatives knew that I was something of a maven — a person with inside information, good connections, and strong instincts. Whenever they were faced with doubt about anything medical, they called me. Between meetings and appointments, I’d find time to research the medical literature and developed good sources in the system so I could direct people to the right sources for treatment. Doctors, initially suspicious, began to trust me, and the bureaucratic authorities who make many of the decisions here in Israel no longer rolled their eyes when I called.

Then, six years ago, I received a call that changed my status forever.

The case seemed simple. A woman had entered the emergency room in critical condition. The only way forward was invasive and potentially life-threatening brain surgery. Time was of essence.

I asked the family a few quick questions. Something just didn’t seem to add up. I had a funny feeling that the same symptoms could be traced to a problem far less significant.

Mustering no small measure of chutzpah, I called in a specialist for a second opinion. “Erblich is right,” he said. “There’s no need for the invasive brain surgery. We can treat this woman without risking her life.”

The brain surgery that wasn’t became a turning point for me. No longer would I be a businessman who squeezed in some medical consulting between meetings. From now on, I realized, I had to devote the bulk of my day to medical advocacy.