Medicine dean outlines growth plans, training to improve access to care

Strengthening South Carolina’s physician workforce while improving health care across the state is among MUSC’s primary goals, according to Terrence Steyer, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine and vice president for Medical Affairs.  

 

Currently, Steyer and College of Medicine leaders are focused on three priorities that prioritize growth – increasing the number of slots for medical school students and recruiting the most highly qualified in-state students, supporting and expanding pathway programs to help with recruiting and retaining students, and enhancing infrastructure for medical education by building a new home for the College of Medicine. All of this is needed to meet the needs of our growing state population and to improve health care for all the citizens of South Carolina.

“By potentially expanding our class size and recruiting even more South Carolina residents, the College of Medicine will continue to be committed to training health care providers to improve health care services in all communities across the Palmetto State,” said Steyer.

Steyer added that timing is critical, noting that by 2030, it’s estimated that the state is projected to face a shortfall of 3,800 physicians that are needed to serve South Carolina residents.

Expanding student recruitment

“We’re already behind in terms of recruiting more students to be part of the medical school class; it’s important that we expand our class and begin training more students, and our new building is an important part of enabling this growth,” Steyer said.

Being able to accept all the qualified applicants to the MUSC College of Medicine is one of the biggest challenges. 

Steyer explained that it starts with having the correct number of seats available within MUSC’s medical school. This year’s medical school class of 2028 is composed of 186 students, a number that is only slightly higher than it was 20 years ago. In 2023, the college received about 4,000 applicants for 180 seats, and of those, 900 were qualified students from South Carolina.

Steyer explained that in-state students, or those who have close ties to the state, have a much greater likelihood of ultimately practicing in the state. "Even if you take into consideration just those qualified in-state students, there’s still five times as many applicants as there are medical school seats,” he said.

“We continue to aim at recruiting the best and brightest students who can be successful in completing their medical degrees in four years and we want to increase the number of applicants from rural counties in-state who apply to medical school."

Steyer believes that the best way to prepare the next generation of physicians to serve the state is to train students to be capable of caring for all patients that seek their expertise in a holistic manner.

New pipeline programs pave the way

The college’s focus on attracting individuals from backgrounds underrepresented in medical education has led to the creation of pathway, or pipeline, programs that support student recruitment from middle school through college. These programs include undergraduate research, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) activities, internships and summer experiences. The goal is to guide students throughout their educational journeys, helping them to be successful in pursuing a career in medicine.

 

To lead this effort, Steyer appointed Sharee Wright, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Surgery and a 2007 COM alumna, who participated in pathway programs as part of her medical school journey. Wright was recently named senior associate dean for Pathways for the college. In this role, she will help to reach out to middle, high school and college students from a variety of backgrounds to help them in their medical education journey. This includes underrepresented minorities, first-generation college students and those of lower socioeconomic backgrounds, all of whom are overrepresented in the South Carolina rural population.

In late 2019, MUSC opened the MUSC Health Florence Medical Center, the first of four community hospitals acquired by MUSC Health outside the Tri-county area, thus expanding health care services for patients in the Pee Dee region. This was followed by the acquisition of MUSC Health Marion Medical Center, MUSC Health Chester Medical Center and the MUSC Health-Midlands Division with its four network hospitals in summer 2021, and MUSC Health Black River Medical Center and MUSC Health-Orangeburg, both in 2023, further improving access to high-quality and highly specialized care in those regions. 

Steyer sees this expansion as a timely opportunity as it coincides with the growth of MUSC both in medical education and clinical areas.

MUSC’s presence in these smaller communities in the Pee Dee, Lowcountry and Midlands areas of the state provides long-term opportunities for medical students to expand their clinical experiences through clerkships, clinical rotations and electives, especially in high-needs medical specialties, including primary care, family medicine and general internal medicine.

MUSC announced plans in 2023 to establish a new graduate medical education (residency) program at MUSC Health Florence Medical Center, the first among the Regional Health Network (RHN) hospitals to provide this type of valuable clinical care residency experience to new physicians, improving access for primary care services to residents in the Pee Dee area. Steyer points out that, while improving immediate access, there is an added benefit – individuals who pursue training there are more likely to return to these underserved communities. There are plans to expand graduate medical education residencies for physicians at other MUSC Health RHN locations soon.

Infrastructure and student financial support

These plans for continued growth coincide with the college’s need to acquire funding to support growth and improve the college’s infrastructure. These include plans to construct a 186,000 square-foot state-of-the-art medical education building that will provide much-needed student study areas, innovative high-tech spaces, expanded lecture rooms and learning areas.

Still, the overarching issue of recruitment and physician growth does not end there, as it also relates to retention. 

 

Several programs currently exist through the South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (SC AHEC) and the Office of Rural Health to recruit and retain professionals to work in rural South Carolina when they complete residency. Additionally, during the last legislative session, the South Carolina Legislature passed the South Carolina Critical Need Physician Workforce Initiative, which will provide funds to reduce student indebtedness both at the time of residency match and after practicing in high needs areas in South Carolina for four years post training. 

In addition to recruitment and retention initiatives offered to students, the college and institution are also proactive in helping students to manage student debt through college and university wide scholarships, such as the MUSC First Scholarship Program, which uses state lottery dollars with matched University funding to provide qualified first-generation college students with one year of paid tuition.

“Any scholarship we provide to remove some debt burden allows us to recruit different students to medical school. For some of these students, scholarships like the MUSC First Scholarship are life-changing for them,” Steyer said.