Posts about Urgent Care
Picture this: you walk into a patient’s room with a chief complaint of lower back pain. Straightforward, right? Then the patient casually adds, “It started after I hurt my back at work.”
Whether you are working in primary care, urgent care, or the emergency department, chances are you see a patient complaining of lower back pain during every shift. It’s one of the most common reasons patients seek care, but also a chief complaint that leads to over-testing, over-treating, and is one of the driving factors behind the opioid epidemic.
Pediatric vomiting is one of those classic urgent care visits that can look completely harmless or quietly concerning. The moment you walk into the room, you are already calculating hydration status, the likelihood of tolerating oral fluids, and whether this is a “treat here” situation or a “transfer now” one. Fortunately, most kids do extremely well with oral rehydration therapy when we choose the right candidates and set them up with a...
You're midway through a busy day when a patient walks in with “just another pneumonia” — fever, cough, perhaps shortness of breath. They mention recent travel to NYC. That should immediately raise the question: Could this be Legionnaires' disease?
Whether you’re in primary care, urgent care, or the ED, the pediatric physical exam can be challenging. Adult vitals make sense. Adults generally cooperate. But kids? They squirm, scream, and sometimes can’t even tell you where it hurts. The pediatric exam isn’t just smaller, it’s a different beast altogether.
It’s every clinician’s nightmare: a pediatric patient in full-blown anaphylaxis, your team scrambling to find the epinephrine vial, draw it up, calculate the pediatric dose, triple-check the concentration — oh, and do it all in a resource-limited setting.
Knee pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal complaints seen in primary care, emergency medicine, and outpatient clinics. Yet despite its prevalence, evaluating an injured knee can feel deceptively complex. Swelling can obscure findings, patient discomfort may limit your exam, and the sheer number of specialized maneuvers can leave even experienced clinicians second-guessing their technique.
Short courses of oral steroids are part of our primary care toolkit, whether it's prednisone for COPD, asthma, back pain, or a rash that just won't quit. But even a quick burst can pack a punch. If your patient came back with high blood sugars or mood changes after a Medrol Dosepak, you’re not alone.
Warts aren't dangerous or life-threatening, but they can be incredibly frustrating for our patients. In primary and urgent care settings, clinicians frequently see patients who've tried every home remedy under the sun — from banana peels to apple cider vinegar — before coming in. Let's clear up the confusion and look at what really works.
It’s been more than a decade, but the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has finally released updated guidelinesfor complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs) — and there’s a lot for clinicians to digest.
Opioid overdoses have become an unavoidable part of our daily shifts in the ED. It is a tragic commonality that transcends social and economic lines. It would be a safe bet that if you are reading this, you likely have a friend, family member, or colleague whose life has been disrupted by opioid abuse.
The population is aging fast, and clinicians are feeling the impact. By 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be over 65, and older adults already represent the highest healthcare utilization of any age group. Yet fewer than 45% of medical schools have a required geriatrics rotation, leaving most of us to piece together our knowledge on the fly.
