If approved by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, the estimated $20 million project could break ground early next year, said Dr. Ronnie Martin, vice dean of development for the branch campus.

The school, which has not been named yet, would bring to three the number of medical schools in South Carolina, according to Lane Goodwin, licensing coordinator for the commission.

VCOM's application is expected to come before the commission for final approval on Jan. 7, Goodwin said.

If the state commission approves the plan, the school may then seek accreditation by the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, and the branch campus could welcome its first class by 2011, Martin said.

The S.C. school could eventually employ 60 or more full-time faculty and accommodate up to 600 students in a 60,000-square-foot facility, Martin said.

Officials chose South Carolina for a branch campus because many VCOM students already do residencies in family medicine and general surgery through partnerships with Spartanburg Regional Medical Center and nearby Wofford College, Martin said.

About 20 percent of the students enrolled at the Blacksburg campus are from North Carolina and South Carolina, according to a news release from the school.

Officials estimate the economic impact of the branch campus at $40 million to $50 million a year. That's a big boon to a rural area similar to Southwest Virginia that has suffered the collapse of a traditional manufacturing economy and a shortage of medical providers, Martin said.

VCOM opened in Blacksburg in 2003 with a mission to produce doctors -- especially primary care physicians -- willing to work in medically underserved communities in Southwest Virginia and Appalachia.

Osteopathic doctors, or D.O.s, can provide all of the same services as the more common doctor of allopathy, or M.D. But because of osteopathic medicine's whole body, or holistic, approach to treatments, more osteopaths go into family or primary care rather than a medical specialty.