To call Gabe Kaley an elder statesman would probably insult him, but only the elder part. Vigorous and energetic, he treats his age as irrelevant: “In the last five years, I have been more productive and have published more papers than in any similar period of my life.” Not bad for the dedicated, dapper professor who is chairman of the Department of Physiology. As for retirement, if it happens Dr. Kaley will have left his mark profoundly on the study of physiology and on New York Medical College, both of which claim his intensive devotion. And as the longest sitting chair of physiology in the nation, he’s succeeded by virtue of his reputation, scientific accomplishments and the steadfast conviction that physiology, as the science of living things, is the very basis of medicine.

Gabor Kaley, Ph.D., left his appointment as assistant professor of pathology at New York University in 1964 to become associate professor in physiology at Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals, the university’s prior home at 106th St. in New York City. In the intervening 36 years he has worked with 8 presidents, 8 deans and 1 chancellor, and watched the Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences grant 38 Ph.D. and 71 M.S. degrees in physiology. Talk about timing, Dr. Kaley came aboard when the school was all of one year old, and he helped establish for the first time graduate education within the school, separate from the medical curriculum. In six years he attained full professorship, and with it, the position of acting chairman in 1970, an appointment the College made permanent two years later.  MORE>>>