South Carolina AHEC News & Updates

Gateway Award The South Carolina AHEC Gateway Award recognizes individuals who are committed to furthering the development of future health professionals and are distinguished in their service to students in the health careers pipeline. This year’s Gateway Award recipient is Jay Blankenship MBA, HRV. Mr. Blankenship works for the South Carolina Department of Commerce and has partnered with Upstate AHEC for more than eight years. He has contributed his time, talent, and resources to Upstate AHEC’s Health Careers Program in various ways, funding projects for HCP’s high school students such as college tours, SAT/ACT workshops, student scholarships, healthcare literacy projects and workforce-readiness workshops for high school and college students across the Upstate. Mr. Blankenship was also responsible for providing classroom sets of literature to HCP’s high school and college students. Through his work at the South Carolina Department of Commerce and Workforce Innovation and Oppo...

The South Carolina AHEC Scholars program is a part of a national initiative to prepare a tomorrow’s health professionals to become leaders in interprofessional, transformative practice to serve rural and underserved populations in our state. AHEC Scholars will join the cutting edge of health professions training with students from multiple health profession disciplines across the state. The program consists of didactic and experiential training opportunities with a focus on interprofessional primary care and service to rural and underserved populations. AHEC Scholars will receive preference for innovative, team-based clinical fieldwork placements, in addition to networking opportunities with state leaders and primary care professionals from across the state. The AHEC Scholars program provides an innovative approach to improving the health of our state by utilizing one of our greatest assets, our future health profession workforce. Through the various educa...

Halford Award for Leadership in Humane Education Presented to Charles Carter, MD Dr. E.J. Mayeaux, Jr., Professor and Chairman, USC Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, and Dr. Katherine Stephens, Vice President for Medical Education, Palmetto Health, presents the 2018 Halford Award to Dr. Chuck Carter.  South Carolina AHEC is pleased to announce that Chuck Carter, MD, is this year’s recipient of the Halford Award for Leadership in Humane Education. Dr. Carter has devoted most of his career to resident education and has demonstrated outstanding leadership in providing humane education.   Dr. Carter is the Director of the South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare, Associate Designated Institutional Official for Graduate Medical Education Palmetto Health/USC Office of Graduate Medicine Education, and Associate Professor, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He served as the program d...

In what ways do social and economic factors influence a person’s ability to make health choices and access healthcare? Twenty undergraduate students who recently completed South Carolina AHEC’s Summer Careers Academy (SCA) had the opportunity to find out. The Academy is a one-week summer experience designed to promote the preparation of undergraduate students for entry into health profession education programs in South Carolina. Emphasis is placed on the development and preparation of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students to address persisting health care workforce disparities. This year’s SCA Fellows also completed a series of sessions and exercises to increase their awareness and understanding of social determinants of health as part of their Summer Academy activities. In collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Library and Colleges of Dental Medicine, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy, South Carolina AHEC delivered a six...

The South Carolina AHEC is pleased to recognize this year’s Resident Scholarship Symposium award winners. The annual South Carolina AHEC Resident Scholarship Symposium is held each year in conjunction with the South Carolina Academy of Family Physicians’ (SCAFP) annual meeting.  This year’s symposium on Isle of Palms featured 16 podium presentations and eight poster presentations. The presentations focus on research and quality improvement projects. They give residents an opportunity to engage with SCAFP members to discuss how these projects translate into practice. The South Carolina AHEC would like to thank those who served as moderators and judges: chair and moderator  Dr. Lisa Mims (Trident/MUSC Family Medicine); moderator Dr. Alec DeCastro (Trident/MUSC Family Medicine); judges Dr. Cristin Adams (Trident/MUSC Family Medicine), Dr. Amanda Davis (AnMed Health Family Medicine), and Dr. Ed Evans (SCAFP Immediate Past President and Board Chair and Program Director, Seneca ...

Upstate AHEC has partnered with Greenville County to provide a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Lab where Upstate AHEC Health Careers Academy (HCA) students learned about disaster preparedness for hazards in the county. Rachel Nafziger from the Greenville County CERT Program taught a lab on medical triage for mass casualty incidents where students were able to learn more about the types of victims in a disaster, the most effective response technique when a disaster occurs and basic triage techniques. With this new knowledge of response behavior, students participated in a triage activity and passed with 90 percent of lives saved. Upstate AHEC would like to recognize the Greenville County team’s commitment to the students’ experience: they will allow HCA students to participate in the complete eight week CERT program for free. Upstate AHEC’s Health Careers Academy is an integrative program offered to high school students in the upstate region who aspire t...