USC School of Medicine Greenville achieves national certification for lifestyle medicine curriculum

The University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville has earned “Platinum Plus” certification from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) for the significant level of undergraduate lifestyle medicine curricula within its programs.

The school is one of the first two in the country to achieve the distinction.

Lifestyle medicine uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Lifestyle medicine-certified clinicians are trained to apply evidence-based, whole-person, prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively, often reverse such conditions. Applying the six pillars of lifestyle medicine—a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, positive social connections, and avoidance of risky substances—also provides effective prevention for these conditions.

The University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville is the first U.S. medical school to fully incorporate education in nutrition, physical activity and healthy behaviors into all four years of the medical school curriculum.

In September 2022, School of Medicine Greenville participated in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, which presented a pioneering vision for ending hunger and reducing diet-related disease by 2030. The school committed a $4.8 million in-kind donation to help implement its open-source lifestyle medicine curriculum in all interested medical schools.

In January of this year, Dr. Jennifer Trilk, founder and director of the medical school’s Lifestyle Medicine Programs, served as a panelist at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Food is Medicine Summit.

“The University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville is honored to accept this amazing certification from ACLM,” Trilk said. “I am so excited and thankful to be on this lifestyle medicine journey with our school and our medical students. We started with four hours of lifestyle medicine in our curriculum in our opening year in 2012, and we have worked together to build up the required lifestyle medicine curriculum to over 100 hours. I also am thrilled that our school will be showcased along with Loma Linda University School of Medicine, as they are such an incredible ally for lifestyle medicine education in undergraduate medical education.”

About USC School of Medicine Greenville

There’s a different kind of medical school in Upstate South Carolina, a place where tomorrow’s doctors train alongside today’s physicians and all members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team from day one. The USC School of Medicine Greenville is a place where students learn using the latest clinical, information and simulation technology and where they develop the leadership, clinical and interpersonal skills essential to delivering the next generation of patient-focused health care with confidence and compassion.