Harry Kornhiser, D.O., who served as the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s (WVSOM) dean of academic affairs from 1976 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1986, passed away Feb. 2 in Covington, VA, at the age of 87.
Kornhiser was a board-certified neurologist and psychiatrist who also served the school as a visiting associate professor of neurology, a full-time associate professor of neurology and, later, a visiting associate professor of psychiatry.
One of WVSOM’s most enduring faculty members, Bob Foster, D.O., WVSOM’s assistant dean for osteopathic medical education, got his start during Kornhiser’s first tenure as dean. It was Kornhiser, Foster said, who encouraged him to look beyond his interest in treating patients and opened his mind to working with students.
“Dr. Kornhiser interviewed me as an applicant for a clinical faculty position in March 1978,” Foster said. “I told him, ‘If I wanted to be a teacher, I would have gone to teachers’ school.’ He said, ‘Just see patients and do what you love to do and it will be all right.’ He was correct, and I found out that a good physician is a good teacher. He was a wonderful human being, a gentle soul, an outstanding physician and a dedicated advocate and activist for osteopathic medicine and WVSOM.”
Kornhiser served in the U.S. Army before earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami in 1959 and attending medical school at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, MO, graduating in 1965 and becoming a neurologist. Following his second appointment as WVSOM’s dean, he completed a psychiatry residency before returning to the school to teach and operate a practice that mixed neurology and psychiatry.
Kornhiser presented his daughter, Belinda Smith, D.O., her diploma upon her 1983 graduation from WVSOM.
Kornhiser continued to work until 2020, retiring from practice at Lewisburg’s Robert C. Byrd Clinic at age 84 after a career that spanned more than a half-century.
