By James T. Hammond
jhammond@scbiznews.com
Published Feb. 26, 2010

The trustees of the University of South Carolina and Greenville Hospital System met Wednesday in an extraordinary face-to-face session to grapple with the details that must be settled to proceed with plans for an expansion of the USC School of Medicine on the Greenville Memorial Hospital campus.

The outcome of the meeting was not a final affiliation agreement, as some had hoped, but a resolution by the USC board’s Health Affairs Committee to continue discussions and to receive “additional and specific information” at the committee’s March 23 meeting.

The goal of the talks is an accord to expand the current agreement that allows third- and fourth-year medical students to be trained at GHS. The new proposal would expand the program initially to 40 students, and all four years of an aspiring doctor’s medical education.

Previous coverage
Greenville medical campus may expand

Ultimately, the goal is to provide many new primary care doctors to meet the medical needs of South Carolina’s growing, and aging, population. USC President Harris Pastides said he hopes to have the program in Greenville ready to admit students in the fall of 2012.

“We have a looming physician shortage in the United States,” Pastides told the joint meeting of the boards. “We need to increase enrollment by 30% to meet those needs, and our greatest need is in primary care.”

“We believe this is a cost-effective, high-quality model,” Pastides said about his vision for the new USC program in Greenville. “I believe we will create here a model that will be a model for the nation.”

The GHS team has been developing a model for medical education that is team-based and evidence-driven. It breaks with most traditional medical school models, which have produced the current medical delivery system built around independent doctors and practices that often treat only a specific illness or disease and do not approach the patient holistically in an integrated fashion.

“We want a curriculum that comprises total health and is trans-disciplinary,” said Dr. Angelo Sinopoli, GHS Chair of Medicine and Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs, who heads the Total Health program at GHS.

“We want to train doctors who can take the responsibility for the standard of care in the community,” said Dr. Spence Taylor, GHS Chair of Surgery and Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs.

Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center may be uniquely situated to host such a revolutionary medical education program. It employs 580 doctors and nurse practitioners, comprising 45% of the total in the market. Those doctors account for 85% of the admissions to Greenville Hospital System. With approximately 70% of the local health care market, GHS is in a unique position to set standards and foster inter-disciplinary approaches to medical care.

Sinopoli calls it a “perfect storm” of circumstances to revolutionize the healthcare delivery system.

But USC President Pastides cautioned that the two boards have not fully agreed on the details of affiliation.

“Many difficult conversations are ahead,” he said. “We are not there yet.”

The boards toured the building on Grove Road that has been designated as the future home of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine at Greenville.