The Medical University of South Carolina has served the citizens of South Carolina since 1824. Since it was founded, the university has expanded from a small private college for the training of physicians to a state university with a medical center and six colleges for the education of a broad range of health professionals, biomedical scientists and other health related personnel.

In 1950, the title of the chief executive officer was changed from dean to president, with separate deans for each of the schools. By the late 1960s, with six fully-operational schools of professional education in the health sciences, the Medical College of South Carolina had become an institution of university size and scope. In 1969, the state legislature changed the name to the Medical University of South Carolina. By this act it established MUSC as the state's only free standing academic health sciences center, exclusively providing a full range of professional education, clinical services and biomedical research.

In 1970 the six schools of the university were designated as colleges, each with its separate administration and faculty organization. Each college awards appropriate degrees along standard academic lines connected with its educational activities. All professional education programs, and the MUSC Medical Center, are accredited by the appropriate professional accrediting agency.

 The six colleges at MUSC include:

College of Dental Medicine
College of Graduate Studies
College of Health Professions
College of Medicine
College of Nursing
College of Pharmacy

College of Dental Medicine
In 1952, the South Carolina Dental Association recommended that a school of dentistry be established as a unit of the Medical College of South Carolina. The state legislature authorized the development of the School of Dental Medicine the following year, but it was not until 1964 that the legislature provided the funds to implement the 1953 authorization. The first students were admitted in 1967, and the first class of 21 students received D.M.D. degrees in June 1971.

College of Graduate Studies
Graduate instruction in the basic sciences was offered for the first time in 1949, with programs in anatomy, chemistry, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. A program in microbiology was added the following year. The first Master of Science degree was conferred in 1951; the Doctor of Philosophy degree was awarded for the first time in 1952. A Committee on Graduate Studies managed graduate training programs until 1965, when the School of Graduate Studies was formally organized as the fourth branch of the institution (joining Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing). Graduate programs in biometry were initiated in 1970, molecular and cellular biology and pathobiology in 1978, pharmaceutical sciences in 1982, and environmental sciences in 1994.

College of Health Professions
Three hospital-based training programs (medical technology, cytotechnology, and radiologic technology) became the nucleus of a division of technical training, recognized as a separate branch of the Medical College in 1964. The School of Allied Health Sciences, now the College of Health Professions, was formally organized in 1966, and expanded to offer more than 20 different training options in the paramedical field. In 1984, lower division certificate and associate degree programs were transferred administratively to Trident Technical College (with the College of Health Profession functioning as the primary clinical affiliate). The college now offers two baccalaureate-degree programs, seven master's-degree programs and two doctoral-degree programs. The College of Health Professions also offers degree programs at satellite sites in Greenville, Columbia, and Rock Hill, S.C.

College of Medicine
The Medical College of South Carolina was incorporated in December 1823 as a private institution of the Medical Society of South Carolina. The faculty bore full responsibility for the college until 1913 when the state assumed ownership of the school. The Medical College opened in 1824 with a faculty of seven Charleston physicians and 30 students. The first students graduated on April 4, 1825. The institution has served continuously since its founding, except for a four-year cessation during the Civil War. Following the Civil War, the college was reorganized and continued to operate -- at one point with as few as two students. The 1909 Flexner Report noted that there were 34 faculty, all part time, and 213 students whose fees were the only support of the school. To achieve progress, additional financing was clearly necessary. In late 1913 the state legislature was successfully petitioned to transfer ownership of the school to the state. Incorporation of the medical college into the state's higher education system allowed teaching and service roles to expand steadily in the twentieth century.

College of Nursing
A two-year training course for nurses was started in 1884 in Roper Hospital. In 1919, the Roper Training School for Nurses was incorporated into the Medical College of South Carolina, expanded to a three-year diploma program. In 1966, the School of Nursing began to phase out the three-year program and established a four-year baccalaureate program leading to the B.S. in Nursing. A nursing master's degree program was begun in 1976. The College of Nursing also offers a B.S.N. degree program for registered nurses at a satellite site at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C.

College of Pharmacy
By faculty resolution, resulting in an amendment to the charter in 1881, the Medical College created a Department of Pharmacy that was, like its mother institution, the first of its kind in the South. The School of Pharmacy was organized in 1882, discontinued after two years, then resumed on a permanent basis in 1894, offering the degree of Graduate in Pharmacy (Ph.G.). The program leading to a degree of Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy was begun in 1936. A Doctor of Pharmacy degree program was begun in 1973, and a Ph.D. program in pharmaceutical sciences was initiated in 1982 (the latter administered through the MUSC College of Graduate Studies in collaboration with the University of South Carolina.

MUSC Medical Center

The Medical College recognized the need for its own facilities to expand clinical teaching opportunities, as well as to serve as a major referral center in South Carolina for diagnosis and treatment of disease. The ten-story Medical University Hospital accepted its first patients in 1955. In 1985 the name of the hospital and its clinics was changed to MUSC Medical Center, reflecting its function in an academic health institution and its wide range of services to the public.

This comprehensive facility is now comprised of three separate hospitals (the University Hospital, the Institute of Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital). The Medical Center also includes centers for specialized care (Heart Center, Transplantation Center, Hollings Cancer Center, Digestive Diseases Center). Numerous outpatient facilities include the Family Medicine Center, University Diagnostic Center, and affiliated faculty practice association ambulatory care centers.

Among the programs which have earned distinguished reputations at the Medical University of South Carolina are: neuroscience, pediatrics, substance abuse, cardiovascular medicine, drug sciences, perinatal medicine, burn care, ophthalmology, hearing loss, genetics, rheumatology, and cancer care.

The mission of the MUSC Medical Center is to provide excellence in patient care, teaching and research in an environment that is respectful of others, adaptive to change and accountable for outcomes.

In keeping with that mission – and to meet the needs of a growing and aging South Carolina population – MUSC Medical Center is embarking on a large-scale, multi-phase plan to expand and upgrade our downtown campus. To learn more about construction of the new hospital, click here.