Long before the first flowers of the new year bloom, an even earlier indicator of winter’s end manifests itself: teenagers plotting and perseverating over Spring Break plans. Partially a rite of passage and in other ways an early indicator of a youth’s future fate, much can be predicted about an adolescent’s trajectory by their choice of destination and activity during this vernal vacation. Sure, it’s not a perfect science. However, it’s safe to say that …
Read MoreUrgent Care Is the Best Place for Patients with ‘Hypertensive Urgencies’: Why We Should Stop Sending Patients with Asymptomatically High Blood Pressure to the ED
Most public health campaigns, with a few notable exceptions, have been abject failures. One undeniably successful example, however, has been awareness of the dangers of high blood pressure. As recently as the early 1970s, when the Framingham Study was published, there was still considerable disagreement in the medical community about the risks of untreated hypertension. But in the face of mounting evidence, it soon became clear that persistently elevated blood pressure was dangerous to a …
Read MoreKeep Your Differential Broad, Especially During Flu Season
I’m phenomenally bad at gambling for a multitude of reasons. I bet small when I should bet large. I bet large when I shouldn’t even be playing the game. I’m especially terrible at roulette because when I pick a number, usually 22, I stick with it—much longer than I should. Each time the wheel stops, on any other number, I’m disappointed, sure. But that disappointment is quickly replaced with hope that the odds of lucky …
Read MoreA New Year, and a New Era for JUCM
35,000. As I assume the role of editor-in-chief of the journal, this is the number that revolves through my head with rhythmic pops like an old, vinyl record. Cognitive psychologists estimate that that’s the number of decisions an average adult makes every day. This number may seem impossibly large at first, to the point of absurdity even. After all, that breaks down to a decision every 2 seconds. But let’s pause briefly and examine this. …
Read MoreAbstracts In Urgent Care – February 2019
Check the Temps: A Timely Throwback Key points: Peripheral temperatures (ie, temporal, tympanic, oral, and axillary) are inaccurate and cannot reliably exclude the presence of fever. If absolute certainty regarding febrile status is critical (eg, neonates, immunosuppressed patients), a (gentle) rectal temperature is the preferred method of temperature acquisition in the urgent care setting. For all others, a tympanic temperature reading <37.5°C appears to best exclude true fever with reasonable certainty. Finally, all this comes …
Read MoreAbstracts In Urgent Care – January 2019
A Brief Introduction Happy New Year! 2018 is now behind us and it was another great year for urgent care. We are fortunate to work in one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing fields in medicine. I find it thrilling that the future of urgent care is ours to define and design. According to data from the UCA, last year nearly 150 million patients received care in U.S. urgent care centers (UCCs). These patients …
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