Prisma Health-University of South Carolina SOM Columbia Columbia Program

Program Identity & Fit

This is a university-affiliated, academic neurology program (Prisma Health/USC SOM Columbia) built on a four-year categorical structure with heavy internal medicine grounding in PGY1 before progressive neurology immersion across Richland Hospital, the VA Columbia Health Care System, Baptist Hospital, and Children's Hospital. The clinical identity centers on vascular neurology/stroke (home to the Midlands' first Stroke Center and its own vascular neurology fellowship), alongside subspecialty faculty coverage in epilepsy, MS, neuromuscular disease, headache, movement disorders, and neuro-ophthalmology. Fellowship placement dominates graduate outcomes—vascular neurology, clinical neurophysiology, epilepsy, neuromuscular, and headache fellowships recur yearly—while the curriculum explicitly names a secondary mission of nurturing clinician-researchers and clinician-educators through protected PGY4 elective time and a mandatory research/QI block. The program draws heavily from osteopathic and international medical graduates and structures continuity clinics, a dedicated procedures clinic, and away-elective options, signaling investment in producing subspecialty-ready general neurologists rather than a narrow academic-research pipeline.