There, he oversaw $1.5 to $2 billion in medical research conducted by Army scientists and others who applied for grants. Their studies ranged from infectious disease to amputee care to rehab issues, Gilman said in an interview.

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The command he led is responsible for “ensuring our armed forces remain in optimal health and are equipped to protect themselves from disease and injury, particularly on the battlefield,” its website notes.

Gilman will take over the Clinical Center after a shake-up that represented the biggest restructuring of the nation's premier biomedical research facility in more than 50 years. NIH Director Francis Collins acted after an independent review concluded in April that patient safety had become “subservient to research demands” at the hospital, where cutting-edge research takes place with critically ill patients and volunteers.

Collins also created a new management team similar to the structure that runs most hospitals. It includes a chief executive, Gilman, along with a chief operating officer and a chief medical officer, who have yet to be named. John Gallin, who'd run the Clinical Center since 1994, was removed and named associate director of research and chief scientific officer.

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The 200-bed facility received about 6,000 inpatient admissions and 100,000 outpatient visits last year, according to NIH.

Gilman declined to say how he will address the problems outlined in the review or what kinds of changes he envisions making. He said it is too early to go public with his plans and wants to discuss them with NIH personnel first. He is scheduled to start in his new post in mid-January.

Gilman retired from the Army in 2013 and served as executive director of the Johns Hopkins Military and Veterans Institute in Baltimore until June. He said he took the new job because he considers volunteers for NIH clinical trials similar to the service members he tried to care for throughout his career.

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"All of my professional career has been taking care of service members and their families and military retirees and their families," he said. "They derived their health care benefit by providing services that benefited all of us. I love that, and I did it for longer than most other people get to do that."