NYMC > About NYMC > History > Leadership History > Presidential History > Karl P. Adler

Karl P. Adler, M.D.

Karl P. Adler, M.D., an experienced leader in healthcare and academia served as president and chief executive officer of New York Medical College from 2007-2011.


Dr. Adler is a professor of medicine at the College, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1981. He served as chief of the Department of Medicine at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan, one of the College’s major clinical affiliates, until 1987, when he was named dean of the NYMC School of Medicine and provost and vice president for medical affairs. In 1994 he left the College to become president and chief executive officer of St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York, N.Y., another of the College’s major clinical affiliates.

Dr. Adler also serves as the Archbishop’s Delegate for Health Care in the Archdiocese of New York and as chairman of the board of the Catholic Health Care System. 

Dr. Adler has held academic appointments throughout New York State, including Albany Medical College, SUNY-Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, and Cornell University Medical College in New York. He has held leadership appointments at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, Ellis Hospital in Schenectady and Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. In 1987 he was appointed by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo to the New York State Task Force for Life and the Law, and until December 2004 held an appointment as a member of the New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council. 

A native of Paterson, N.J., Dr. Adler graduated from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., in 1962, and received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. in 1966. He completed residency training at Bellevue Hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and New York Hospital in Manhattan. A resident of Manhattan, he is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.