Biochemistry alum Dr. Phyllis MacGilvray ’96 became interested in medicine at an early age because of her relationship with her family doctor.
“I have a curious mind and was always asking, ‘Why?’ I found science fascinating because it gave me an avenue to finding answers,” she said. “Medicine was just a natural fit for me.”
In July, the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville named Dr. MacGilvray, a family medicine practitioner of over 20 years, its dean.
Dr. MacGilvray earned her doctor of medicine degree in 2002 from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston before completing her residency in family medicine at the University of Vermont, followed by academic leadership positions at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune and at the University of Texas Health San Antonio.
She then returned home to South Carolina in 2018 to take a position with Prisma Health—Upstate as vice chair for academic affairs in family medicine, becoming department chair in 2020 and leading the development of two new graduate medical education programs, which tripled the number of family medicine residency positions at Prisma.
Dr. MacGilvray will serve as dean for a two-year term – a time in which she plans to bolster the school’s research footprint and elevate the school’s lifestyle medicine mission. She is the first medical school dean in the country who is board-certified in lifestyle medicine, which focuses on using evidence-based lifestyle interventions to prevent, treat and reverse chronic diseases.
“Learning from the very first day of medical school how to educate patients holistically is only going to improve the care of their patients down the line,” Dr. MacGilvray said.
Read more in the Clemson News article.
