Becoming a doctor was a no-brainer for Dr. Phyllis MacGilvray.
“I have an inquisitive mind and I always asked myself, ‘Why?’ I found science fascinating because it gave me a way to find answers,” she said. “I became interested in medicine from a very young age, from kindergarten, thanks to the relationship with my family doctor.
“Medicine was simply a natural solution for me. »
In July, the University of South Carolina School of Medicine at Greenville (USC SOMG) named Dr. MacGilvray, a family medicine practitioner for more than 20 years, its dean.
Financial reasons led her to begin her college career at a small college in South Carolina, but she quickly decided to transfer to Clemson, a school that had accepted her during her high school application.
You are looking for more rigor
“In my first semester, I quickly realized that my classes were no more difficult than my high school classes, and that scared me. I didn’t feel like I was getting what I needed to go to medical school, which was always my goal,” Dr. MacGilvray said. “I immediately began applying to transfer to Clemson, specifically for the College of Science, knowing that a biochemistry major would help prepare me for the courses I read were the most difficult for freshmen year of medicine.”
She discovered how rigorous Clemson was when she received a C in her first 100-level biochemistry course.
“It was the first CI of my life. I thought my world was coming to an end, but it was a transformative course because it demonstrated that I could fail. I actually didn’t fail the class, but I felt like I was failing. That was my first “aha” moment of “wow, I have to work some work.” »
Dr. MacGilvray worked hard and graduated from Clemson in 1996, becoming the first in her family to earn a college degree.
A year in a laboratory
She applied to the Medical University of South Carolina, but like most medical school applicants, Dr. MacGilvray didn’t make it on the first try. She moved to Charleston anyway and worked for a year in Westvaco’s forest products lab, performing biolistic transformation on loblolly pines to make them sturdier and more disease-resistant.
“I wanted to move to Charleston to experience the community and see if this was where I wanted to live and stay for medical school,” she said. “And it allowed me to do laboratory research and get exposure in the field of biochemistry. If I didn’t get into medical school, I needed to know if this was a career path that I would enjoy and enjoy. And I enjoyed it.
Dr. MacGilvray joined MUSC the following year and received her MD in 2002. She completed her family medicine residency at the University of Vermont and then held academic leadership positions at Eastern Virginia Medical School , at the Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune and at the University of Texas Health San Antonio.
She returned home to South Carolina in 2018 to take a position at Prisma Health—Upstate as vice president of academic affairs in family medicine. She became department director in 2020, leading the development of two new graduate medical education programs, which tripled the number of family medicine residency positions at Prisma.
Dr. MacGilvray serves as dean for a two-year term.
She is the first medical school dean in the country to be certified in lifestyle medicine, which focuses on the use of evidence-based lifestyle interventions to prevent, treat and reverse diseases. chronic diseases. USC SOMG is one of two medical schools in the country certified platinum-plus by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, meaning students receive more than 100 hours of lifestyle education. About 30 percent of the school’s students graduate from Clemson.
Educate patients comprehensively
“Learning from day one of medical school how to educate patients holistically will only improve their care in the long term,” Dr. MacGilvray said. “Back in medical school, I received less than 10 hours of nutrition education in my four years. This is typical of many doctors my age and older, and, unfortunately, typical of many medical schools these days.
Dr. MacGilvray said disease prevention is the goal of all primary care physicians.
“We’ve all heard our doctor say, ‘Exercise more, eat more fruits and vegetables.’ But the lifestyle medicine program further structures how doctors educate patients about habits that can help improve their health,” she said. “Instead of telling a patient to exercise more, we write a prescription stating frequency, intensity, duration and type. And when I see you again, I’ll ask you how it went and we’ll change the plan.
Lifestyle medicine includes six pillars: nutrition, physical activity, stress management, restful sleep, social connections and avoidance of risky substances.
Improving Lifestyle Medicine
As dean, Dr. MacGilvray aims to elevate the medical school’s mission of lifestyle medicine. The director of SOMG’s lifestyle medicine programs plans to create a mobile teaching kitchen that would help teach the community how to cook healthy meals. Dr. MacGilvray also wants to improve overall support for students, including optimizing mental health and academic support.
Additionally, Dr. MacGilvray wants to strengthen the school’s research footprint. She is establishing a research office and hopes to hire an associate dean for research early this year. She said she expects additional research ties with Clemson and Prisma Health.
“We have a physician shortage in the country, but South Carolina’s is one of the worst,” Dr. MacGilvray said. “This is an opportunity for the Upstate to potentially produce doctors who want to stay here and go to our more rural areas to practice and see patients.”
The school launched an accelerated primary care program in July. Students in the PCAT program will complete their medical training at USC SOMG in three years and transition smoothly into a three-year residency in one of Prisma Health’s family medicine residency programs. Students receive a full tuition scholarship. After residency, they commit to four years of providing primary care within the Prisma Health system in upstate communities.
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