South Carolina AHEC News & Updates

The South Carolina AHEC Scholars Program seeks to encourage and prepare tomorrow’s health professionals to become leaders in interprofessional, transformative practice for rural and underserved areas. The program, now in its second year, recently welcomed its latest Scholars with a statewide orientation. South Carolina AHEC Health Professions Student (HPS) coordinators from all four regional centers hosted the students in-person in Charleston and Columbia as well as online, using videoconference technology to connect the groups. New Scholars in attendance highlighted the program’s interprofessional and inter-institutional focus: of the 18 students in attendance, they represented six professions (MD, nurse practitioner, PharmD, physical therapy, physician assistant, and social work) and two academic institutions (MUSC and UofSC). Scholars were engaged and excited to be a part of the program. Katherine Olsen, a UofSC PharmD student elaborated: “I feel that the AHEC Scholar...

Mid-Carolina AHEC’s Health Careers Program (HCP) is proud to announce a continued partnership with Prisma Health Richland. Recently, Mid-Carolina AHEC HCP students had the chance to participate in a reality-based education program that introduces adolescents to the Level 1 Trauma Center through Project READY, Prisma Health Richland’s community outreach program. Lara Peck, program coordinator for Project READY, begins the session with a presentation explaining various behaviors that lead to traumatic injury. The presentation included a brief anatomy lesson of various body parts, such as the brain and spinal cord, that might be impacted in a trauma event. Students also met a presenter who experienced a traumatic injury as a child, leaving her lower body paralyzed. The presenter shared her story about her accident and experience as a patient and gave the students the opportunity to ask questions about her experience and how she lives her daily life.   Later students were a...

In 2002, Stacey Price was a medical laboratory technician seeking to advance her career by pursuing a Bachelor of Science in health science at the Medical University of South Carolina. As a health professions student, she participated in Lowcountry AHEC’s South Carolina Rural Interprofessional Program of Training (SCRIPT). Fast forward to 2020 and Stacey is working with Lowcountry AHEC, teaching health professionals phlebotomy as well as volunteering to share her knowledge and experience in clinical laboratory science with high schools students in the Health Careers Program. She is a positive role model and partner for AHEC stating, “Lowcountry AHEC and the SCRIPT program enriched my knowledge while encouraging me to share my skills within my rural community.” It is people like Stacey that make our AHEC pipeline work! To find out more about Lowcountry AHEC's programming, please visit their website .

Upstate AHEC Continuing Professional Development Coordinator Lauren Taylor with Mental Health First Aid Instructors Krissi Raines and Brittany Alga Mental Health First Aid  (MHFA) is a globally recognized program that originated in Australia in 2001. Participants can become certified in youth or adult MHFA through an eight-hour course in which they learn skills to help someone with a mental illness or someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis. Trained first-aiders are then able to use skills and techniques learned during the training to provide aid to someone in need until appropriate professional treatment and support can be arranged. Adults spend roughly a third of their adult lives working, and having employees complete a program like MHFA can be essential in creating a mentally healthy workplace in which individuals feel valued, supported and respected. Many workplaces have an automated external defibrillator (AED) and have trained their staff on how to use it...