Coming Full Circle
Liad Silbermann has built clinics in Africa, completed Ironman races, led international teams, and now heads his own medical startup. Yet after more than two decades away, the place he felt compelled to return to was where his journey first began: Magen David Adom.
For Liad Silbermann, Magen David Adom was never simply where he learned emergency medicine. It became the foundation for a lifetime dedicated to helping others.
He first walked through the doors of an MDA station in 1989 as a 15-year-old youth volunteer. Over the years, he trained as an EMT, instructor, dispatcher, and eventually one of the organization's paramedics. After completing his military service, he continued working at MDA before his career took him in a new direction.
That journey would eventually lead him thousands of miles from home.
Liad spent time working as a paramedic in Angola before taking on senior leadership roles, helping establish a network of 15 medical clinics in remote communities with limited access to healthcare. Along the way, he also became an Ironman athlete, completing three full Ironman races and ten marathons while coaching other endurance athletes.
Yet despite everything he accomplished, one chapter of his life remained unfinished.
In 2022, after more than two decades away from MDA as an employee, Liad made the decision to return, not for a new career, but as a volunteer.
"A lot had changed," he recalled. "I chose to go through the entire retraining process. It was important to me to earn my place back." Not long after returning, one emergency call left a lasting impression.
His team responded to a middle-aged father who had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest at home. Alongside other emergency crews, they fought tirelessly to save his life, using every treatment and resource available. While speaking with the family afterward, one of the man's young sons quietly asked a question Liad has never forgotten:"Could he have been saved?" "That question stayed with me," Liad said.
Years of volunteering with MDA had already shown him how critical every minute is during cardiac arrest. Through the organization's growing public defibrillator network and continued investment in lifesaving technology, he had seen firsthand how early intervention can dramatically improve a patient's chances of survival. The experience inspired him to ask what the next step could be.
Today, alongside his volunteer work with MDA, Liad is developing a compact, lower-cost defibrillator designed to make early defibrillation even more accessible for families and local communities. The project is still in development, but he says its mission was born from lessons learned throughout decades of responding to emergencies with MDA.
Even after a career spanning continents, leadership positions, humanitarian projects, and endurance sports, Liad still chooses to spend his free time responding to emergency calls.
More than three decades after first putting on an MDA uniform, he continues to be guided by the same purpose that brought him through those station doors as a teenager: using his knowledge, experience, and compassion to be there for people when they need it most.
