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Family Medicine Residency Columbia - Program Details and Features

Dedicated to advancing quality care

At Prisma Health, we are dedicated to state-of-the-art care. We have a modern family medicine center with a fully-integrated electronic health record system (EPIC). All patient rooms, resident offices, nursing and study areas are fully equipped with computers for instant access to patient records, prescription writing, lab and drug interaction data and online teaching resources.

In Columbia, the Family Medicine Center features:

  • Onsite laboratory facilities
  • In-house ambulatory pharmacist, social worker, and community health workers
  • Point-of-care ultrasound, including handheld Butterfly devices (see more below)
  • Procedure rooms for dermatologic procedures, GYN procedures including colposcopy, IUD placement and Nexplanon insertion, minor surgical procedures, splinting/casting, office pulmonary function testing, and more

We also have incredible hospital facilities. Prisma Health Heart Hospital, located on the main hospital campus, is the most advanced cardiac care facility in the area. Serving patients from the Midlands and all over central South Carolina, the 200,000-square-foot hospital is the state's first freestanding facility dedicated entirely to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Prepared for the future?

Our residents learn essential skills for practice management, including the fundamentals of continuous quality improvement, evidence-based practice and practice redesign. With these skills, graduates are ready to help transform primary care for their future patients and communities. This includes learning how to develop practices into medical homes, promote community wellness and develop you own educational needs around your future practice plans.

Like sports?

Our residents get the unique opportunity to care for NCAA Division I athletes from the University of South Carolina, as well as those from surrounding smaller colleges and high schools in the Midlands area. Our department cares for all UofSC athletes and offers a Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship.

Point-of-care ultrasound curriculum

At Prisma Health, we realize that family medicine is constantly changing and that it is important to be early adopters of useful new technology. Similarly, we believe that point-of-care ultrasound is a tool that can help improve patient care while decreasing the cost. We are proud to be known as one of the leaders in point-of-care ultrasound in family medicine and for developing one of the first fully-integrated curriculum in a family medicine residency. We are happy to be in the process of helping many other interested programs develop similar curricula.

Outcomes of our curriculum have been published in the peer-reviewed literature: Assessment of a Novel Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curriculum's Effect on Competency Measures in Family Medicine Graduate Medical Education - PubMed (nih.gov)
 
All our family medicine residents have a dedicated month to introductory ultrasound training during their PGY1 year and will continue to develop their skills during the remainder of their residency. Ultrasound training includes advanced simulation, directly supervised hand- on training and self-directed educational scanning with faculty review of images. All residents will receive experience required for credentialing in point-of-care ultrasound applications which can include:

  • Limited Echocardiography
  • Limited Biliary Ultrasound
  • Limited Urologic Ultrasound
  • Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening
  • Focused DVT Evaluation
  • Peripheral Arterial Disease
  • Carotid Artery Stenosis
  • Ophthalmologic Ultrasound
  • Pulmonary Ultrasound
  • Limited and Advanced OBGYN Ultrasound (including transvaginal)
  • Limited Thyroid Evaluation and FNA of Nodules
  • Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and Procedure Guidance
  • Soft Tissue Ultrasound
  • Bowel Assessment
  • Guidance for other procedures including fine needle aspiration, core needle biopsy, venous access, thoracentesis and paracentesis (all of which are done regularly in our outpatient clinic).
  • Much more!

Life is good in Columbia

Located in the heart of South Carolina, Columbia is a capital city with everything to offer, but is not so big that it can't be "mastered" in three years. Specifically, the night life in the Vista district is designed around young professionals. Columbia also has excellent restaurants, a nationally ranked zoo and botanical garden, museums and a vibrant arts scene. It is a very family-friendly town with access to lakes, parks, sports and entertainment venues, as well as excellent neighborhoods throughout the city and surrounding areas. With an average mean temperature of 65°F and 226 days of sunshine, our climate gives year-round opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. Columbia is also within day trip range of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the coastline.

Recognized for excellence

Our residents consistently excel and are leaders in our hospital system. Both the residency and the sports medicine fellowship have recently been awarded a five-year re-accreditation by the ACGME, with commendations for substantial compliance.

We seek caring, compassionate individuals who want to develop their knowledge and skills to be able to care for patients from birth throughout life. We are patient-centered and family-committed. We look for individuals who desire an intense, broad-range residency education that will enable them to care for patients in any clinical setting, whether in a hospital, outpatient clinic, emergency room, labor and delivery unit or ICU, and in any geographic location. We expect our residents to be leaders on campus and go on to positively impact their communities and family medicine as a discipline.

We prepare family medicine physicians for the future they envision for themselves. We're proud of our commitments to our community, personalized education, evidence-based practice, and the future of family medicine. You will find no better place to prepare yourself for that future than Prisma Health Family Medicine Residency in Columbia.