Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital is a public regional community teaching hospital with 649 inpatient beds devoted to medical, surgical, pediatric, psychiatric, and obstetric and gynecologic care. The hospital also supports the Level One trauma center for the region, a neonatal intensive care unit, and special care and newborn nursery units, as well as the South Carolina Cancer Center. Outpatient services total more than 284,000 visits annually. Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital's affiliations with the Dorn Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute support diversified residency training programs in dentistry, emergency medicine, family practice, internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedic surgery, pediatrics, and psychiatry and fellowship programs in endocrinology, forensic psychiatry, gastroenterology, geriatrics, hyperbaric medicine, medical oncology, and sports medicine. In February 1998, Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital and Palmetto Baptist Medical Center combined their resources and facilities in Columbia to create one integrated healthcare system, the Palmetto Health Alliance, the largest healthcare system in South Carolina.
Medical students benefit from the expanded educational opportunities that result from the alliance.
There is an ambulatory care program with clinics in medicine, ophthalmology, surgery, and other specialties. Annual ambulatory care visits total approximately 250,000. The Dorn V.A. Medical Center is one of the most active Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in the South Carolina-Georgia region. Various facilities of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health provide clinical experiences for medical students.