New dean named for NYIT medical college

New York Institute of Technology has named department chairman Dr. Wolfgang Gilliar the new dean of the university’s College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury.

Gilliar, 56, of Hempstead, has been with the college since 2004 as a faculty member and chairman of the osteopathic medicine department. He is credited with various curriculum innovations, including a series of educational videos on the school’s Web-based learning catalog, university officials said. He will assume the new post on Jan. 1.

Gilliar, recently named the 2012 Educator of the Year by the American Osteopathic Foundation, is a former professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and Stanford University School of Medicine.

“I have three ‘C’s’ that I want our students to be at the time they graduate and beyond: competent, confident and compassionate,” Gilliar said in a statement. “I feel not only honored and joyful but also stimulated to do more and encourage our students even more to be the best they can be.”

Gilliar said he plans to grow the school’s research in the areas of heart failure and kidney disease, as well as studies on Parkinson’s disease and specific applications of osteopathic manipulative medicine.

Gilliar is author of or contributor to 20 books and chapters on osteopathic and musculoskeletal medicine. He holds a doctor of osteopathy degree from Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. He founded an osteopathic medical center in California and previously directed the traumatic brain injury unit at Tufts’ Greenery Rehabilitation Center.

At NYIT, Gilliar studied the effects of osteopathic manipulative medical treatment on the immune system for asthma and stroke patients.

Gilliar succeeds Dr. Thomas Scandalis, who served as dean since 2007. Scandalis now chairs the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s new Department of Sports Medicine and is director of the new NYIT Center for Sports Medicine and Performance Sciences.