The University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville offers a hands-on, real-world experience that isn’t a mere promise for the future, but a way of life. The USC School of Medicine Greenville is a place where students learn using the latest clinical, information and simulation technology and where they develop the leadership, clinical and interpersonal skills essential to delivering the next generation of patient-focused health care with confidence and compassion.

The majority of students will follow a four-year medical education program. Starting in the Fall of 2023, students may apply for the Primary Care Accelerated Track which involves an intensive three-year medical education program, followed by three years of family medicine residency training at Prisma. This accelerated track is tuition-free and includes a four-year commitment to practice primary care in the state of South Carolina.

Learning Outcomes

PATIENT CARE: Provide patient-centered care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for health treatment, promotion of health, and prevention of chronic disease

• PC1: Demonstrate the ability to perform routine technical procedures.
• PC2: Gather relevant patient histories from multiple data sources, as necessary.
• PC3: Perform relevant physical examinations using appropriate techniques and tools.
• PC4: Organize and execute responsibilities to provide patient care that is effective and efficient.
• PC5: Propose hypothesis-driven diagnostic testing and interpret results.
• PC6: Make informed decisions about diagnostic and therapeutic interventions based up-to-date scientific evidence, and clinical judgment.
• PC7: Formulate and execute therapeutic management plans for commonly encountered clinical conditions.
• PC8: Integrate patient and caregiver context, needs, values, preferences, and experiences into care delivery through shared decision-making.
• PC9: Incorporate health promotion and disease prevention into patient care plans.
• PC10: Identify individual and structural factors that impact health and wellness.
• PC11: Identify patients in need of urgent or emergent care, seeks assistance, and recommends initial evaluation and management.
• PC12: Create and prioritize differential diagnoses.
• PC13: Use patient-centered language to describe common diagnostic and therapeutic interventions and plans.

KNOWLEDGE FOR PRACTICE: Demonstrate knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological, and social-behavioral sciences, as well as the application of this knowledge to patient care

• KP1: Demonstrate knowledge of basic, clinical, pathophysiologic, social, and health systems sciences, as well as humanities, needed for clinical practice.
• KP2: Apply foundational knowledge for clinical problem-solving, diagnostic reasoning, and decision-making to clinical scenarios.
• KP3: Demonstrate knowledge of research design, interpretation, and application to clinical questions.
• KP4: Access knowledge relevant to clinical problems using appropriate resources, including emerging technologies.
• KP5: Apply principles of epidemiological sciences to the identification of lifestyle-related and other health problems, risk factors, treatment strategies, resources, and disease prevention/health promotion efforts for patients and populations.
• KP6: Apply principles of social-behavioral sciences to provision of patient care, including assessment of the impact of social drivers on health.

PRACTICE-BASED LEARNING AND IMPROVEMENT: Integrates feedback, evidence, and reflection to adapt behavior, foster improvement, and cultivate life-long learning

• PBLI 1: Identify strengths and opportunities for growth in one’s own performance through informed self-assessment and reflective practice.
• PBLI 2: Seek and assimilate feedback and assessment data to develop learning and improvement goals.
• PBLI 3: Locate, critically appraise, and synthesize information to support evidence-informed, patient-centered clinical decisions.
• PBLI 4: Develop skills for life-long learning by continually identifying, analyzing, and implementing new knowledge, guidelines, standards, technologies, products, or services that have been demonstrated to improve outcomes and develop skills.

INTERPERSONAL AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with patients, their families, and health professionals in a manner that optimizes safe, effective patient and population- centered care

• IICS 1: Communicate and collaborate effectively with patients and caregivers across a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
• IICS 2: Communicate and collaborate effectively with colleagues within one’s profession or specialty, other health professionals, and health-related agencies.
• IICS 3: Communicate clearly accurately and compassionately in verbal, nonverbal, written, and electronic formats.
• IICS 4: Maintain comprehensive, timely, and legible medical documentation.
• IICS 5: Demonstrate sensitivity, honesty, and compassion in difficult conversations (e.g. death, end-of-life issues, adverse events, bad news, disclosure of errors, and other sensitive topics).
• IICS 6: Develop and manage interpersonal interactions using insight and understanding of human responses to emotions.
• IICS 7: Lead and collaborate with other health professionals to establish and maintain a climate of mutual respect, dignity, diversity, ethical integrity, and trust.
• IICS 8: Formulate and share feedback constructively with others.
• IICS 9: Demonstrate skills in educating patients, caregivers, peers, and team members.

PROFESSIONALISM: Demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to ethical principles

• P 1: Demonstrate honesty, integrity, compassion and respect in all interactions with others.
• P 2: Use ethical principles and reasoning to guide behavior.
• P 3: Demonstrate respect for patient privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy.
• P 4: Adapt actions and communication according to the situation.
• P 5: Demonstrate humility and a willingness to learn from others with different backgrounds and experiences.
• P 6: Identify personal limits of knowledge, skills, and emotional resilience and seek help appropriately.
• P 7: Identify personal biases and strategies to mitigate their effects.
• P 8: Recognize and address personal well-being needs that may impact professional performance.
• P 9: Complete duties and tasks in a thorough, reliable, and timely manner.

SYSTEMS-BASED PRACTICE: Demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care

• SBP 1: Coordinate patient care within the health care system, particularly during transitions of care.
• SBP 2: Incorporate considerations of cost awareness and risk-benefit analysis in patient and/or population-based care.
• SBP 3: Advocate for quality patient care and optimal patient care systems for all patients by applying knowledge of local population and community health needs and resources.
• SBP 4: Participate in identifying system errors, patient safety concerns, and opportunities for quality improvement.