Old Westbury, NY – NYIT medical experts have received $2 million in Federal grants to help them confront two major healthcare challenges: strengthening the quality of geriatric medical education and increasing the number of America's family physicians.

The Health Resources and Services Administration awarded the grants to New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM) of NYIT. One grant will fund a new program to develop and deliver a specialized geriatrics curriculum for family physicians. The second grant, for $950,000, will support an accelerated medical education track for students who want to make a commitment to practicing family medicine.

"These grants bring a certain amount of prestige and recognition to the medical school—we've taken another step toward affecting health policy and health issues on a grander scale," said Dean Thomas Scandalis, D.O.

Family physicians are the source of care for most elderly patients, according to Scandalis and several NYCOM faculty members. Over the next five years, NYCOM will train its own faculty along with more than 200 attending physicians and residents at area hospitals with an enhanced curriculum devoted to geriatric medical issues. The curriculum will be offered to new medical students within a few years.

NYCOM's second grant for an accelerated family medicine education track will make it possible for students committed to family medicine to finish their undergraduate schooling in three years rather than four. They will take extra summer courses and, after their third year, start their residency training at one of five hospitals in medically underserved areas in either upstate New York, New York City or Long Island.

Ron Portanova, NYCOM's Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, said one of the main goals of the program is to increase the number of students who elect to enter family medicine, particularly in underserved areas.

The American Academy of Physicians has reported a dramatic drop in the number of medical school graduates choosing family medicine. Between 1999 and 2010, the number dropped by 41 percent.

The program will allow NYCOM to create specialized curriculum materials on family medicine studies such as health promotion, disease prevention, and disease progression, and make them available early to students committed to family medical practice.

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New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 14,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and at its global campuses. NYIT sponsors 11 NCAA Division II programs and one Division I team.

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