Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

A Disconnected World

Texting, chatting, networking, blogging, and posting. The evolution of communication into characters on a screen…digitized snippets, factoids, and acronyms used to express display, inform, and explain. Even emotions have been whittled down into emoticons…a semicolon “wink” and a parenthetic “frown.” E-mail? That is soooo last decade! Electronic communication technology has practically replaced more traditional forms. So what does this mean? What is the impact on socialization, relation, and emotional connection? Are there any negative effects? …

Are You Really Listening?

We all think we are great listeners. We “listen” to chief complaints, we listen to histories of present illness, we listen to heart and lung sounds. We spend the better part of the day “listening.” But are we really listening? Or are we just “hearing?” Hearing is the perception of sounds by the auditory nerves in the ear. Listening involves an attentiveness to hear with a purpose of understanding. hearing is a temporal lobe function, …

A Mathematical Model for Political Influence in Healthcare Reform

‘Round and ‘round it goes… and where it stops, nobody knows. Feeling dazed and confused by the dizzying display of legislative slight of hand? Now you see it, now you don’t! Compromise, in theory, sounds like the right thing to do when trying to balance interests. Compromise often leads to parity and equity between competing interests. However, when competing interests have unequal power, compromise tends to favor those with the most influence. I promise a …

In Support of a Pledge

If you are reading this, you should be a member of UCA. No cheating…keep reading. The Urgent Care Association (UCA) is your representative organization. Whether you are a practice administrator, biller, owner, physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner, UCA is doing the heavy lifting on your behalf to build the foundation of this industry and discipline. Consider the following: UCA was founded six years ago with the vision to be the catalyst for the recognition …

‘Responsible Leadership:’ Questions and Answers

Q. “I’m a physician. I’ve paid my dues. Isn’t it enough to provide good care for my patients?” Q. “I’m an owner. I have a business to run, decisions to make, money to stake. Don’t I call the shots here?” Q. “I’m a manager, I have spreadsheets to analyze, schedules to make, sick calls … with all responsibilities, how can I be expected to find time to be a leader?” Q. “I’m a front desk …

The Hidden Costs of Medical Liability

The malpractice debate continues, like a rerun of Quincy, M.E. – you know the ending, but pretend to be surprised, if only to justify why you would watch the same show twice (or, in this case, many more). The issue of medical liability, while it has received little attention I the health reform debate, is perhaps the best example of why changing healthcare, no matter where you want it to go, is so difficult to …

What can YOU do for YOU?

I know this may sound like a funny way to start a column. It’s a bit confrontational perhaps, maybe even a little insulting. Why is this guy calling me out on the carpet here? What did I ever do to him? I have been involved in organized medicine for almost 10 years, at varying levels of responsibility. If I learned one thing alone the way, it is this: If you want id one, you better …

H1N1: The Sequel

Unless you have spent the entire summer on Gilligan’s Island, I assume everyone remains attuned to the daily reports on H1N1 streaming from every which way but loose. While the prevailing opinion is that the flu season will be Superbad, it remains difficult to predict how things will play out. We will be dedicating the October issue of JUCM to pandemic flu planning, though given the likelihood of an early spike of flu, there are …

‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’: The Birth of a Public Health Plan

With healthcare reform imminent, the question on everyone’s mind is: “How will this impact me?” While there is almost universal support for reform – what you might call the why of a healthcare fix – there is considerable disagreement about the how, when, who, and where. While the details of reform may change a bit over the next several months, there are a few things we should consider invariable: The Democrats’ solid control of the …

Of Swine Flu, ‘Chicken Little,’ and the Great Depression

History teaches us so many lessons, most of which we quickly forget until the next history-making crisis. Nothing in history is a more predictable crisis producer than “fear.” Fear sows panic, panic sows irrational behavior, and irrational behavior sows wars, economic disasters, bigotry, and protectionism. When the dust settles, we analyze our missteps and, often, recognize most of the fallout could have been avoided had we learned from history. The Great Depression was a real …