Unexpected Viral Illness in an Urgent Care Setting: The Re-Emergence of Mumps, Measles, and Varicella

Unexpected Viral Illness in an Urgent Care Setting: The Re-Emergence of Mumps, Measles, and Varicella

 Urgent message: Urgent care providers often see acute public health emergencies due to easy patient accessibility. It is important to identify communicable disease rapidly to control any risk of a community outbreak. This article will focus on mumps, measles and varicella (chickenpox). Carmen N. Burrell, DO, Melinda J. Sharon, MPH, and Megan Kessell, BA In recent years, outbreaks of uncommon infectious diseases have occurred in schools and communities, due to increasing travel exposures, decreasing vaccination …

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An 11-Year-Old Boy with Forearm and Wrist Pain After a Fall

An 11-Year-Old Boy with Forearm and Wrist Pain After a Fall

The patient is an 11-year-old boy who presents complaining of pain in his left and right forearm and wrist after falling from a height of approximately 5 feet. His parents report that he was attempting to hang upside down by his knees from a chin-up bar in his school’s gymnasium when he slipped. View the images taken and consider what the diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolutions of the case is described on the …

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A 27-Year-Old Man with a Lesion on One Hand

A 27-Year-Old Man with a Lesion on One Hand

A 27-year-old man presents complaining of a single skin lesion on his hand. He reports that it first appeared as a smooth nodule that ulcerated and spread in a lymphangitic fashion. He grew worried when he started to have a fever. The only unusual activity he’d done in the last few weeks was clean out one of his large saltwater aquariums to prepare for purchasing new fish. View the photo and consider what your diagnosis …

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Abstracts 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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Cat Scratch Disease Presenting as Parinaud’s Oculoglandular Syndrome

Cat Scratch Disease Presenting as Parinaud’s Oculoglandular Syndrome

Urgent message: Cat scratch disease caused by the bacteria Bartonella henselae typically presents as isolated lymphadenopathy in the region draining the inoculation site (cat scratch or saliva), as well as systemic symptoms such as a fever and malaise. In otherwise healthy people, oculoglandular symptoms are occasionally seen as a complicated presentation. CSD should be included in the differential diagnosis of these symptoms. Joseph V.M. Kelly, MD, MBA, Nicholas Baltera OMS I, and Ronald Dvorkin, MD, …

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A 57-Year-Old Man with 3 Days of Lightheadedness

A 57-Year-Old Man with 3 Days of Lightheadedness

The patient is a 57-year-old man who complains of lightheadedness for the last 3 days. He has a history of a heart stent placed 4 years ago and has been asymptomatic since that time. He denies vomiting, diarrhea, chest pain, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, or paresthesias. No recent travel. He takes metoprolol and clopidogrel. There is a family history of hypertension Upon exam, you find: General: Sitting comfortably in a chair, alert, breathing comfortably …

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A Pregnant Mother Presenting to Urgent Care with Chickenpox

A Pregnant Mother Presenting to Urgent Care with Chickenpox

Urgent message: Failure to correctly diagnose and provide immediate treatment for varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection in pregnant patients can lead to life-threatening complications for the mother, and serious congenital malformations to the fetus. Samrana Arefeen, MD and Khalid Aziz, MD Introduction There are several types of skin lesions and rashes that are common during pregnancy. Some are benign and confer no risk to the expectant mother or the fetus. However, some are symptoms of …

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A 50-Year-Old Farmer with Flu-Like Symptoms

A 50-Year-Old Farmer with Flu-Like Symptoms

The patient, age 50, is a farmer who presents with flu-like symptoms—fever, chills, productive cough, myalgia, and pleuritic chest pain that developed over a few weeks. What worried him most, however, was a crusted lesion on his arm that was a large verrucous scaly plaque. View the photo and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.

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Longitudinal Assessment: A Dent in the ABMS Armor?

With the volume of dissent against Maintenance of Certification (MOC) now at a fever pitch, American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) boards are finally making changes to their recertification programs with the intent of reducing the burden on physicians. The issue could not be more acute than in urgent care, where many UCA member physicians have been practicing for years. Working outside of their specialties of training and growing more distant from the best practice …

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Abstracts In Urgent Care – December 2018

The Year in Abstracts: Top Papers of 2018 for the Urgent Care Clinician Reviewed by Andy S. Barnett, MD  This has been an eventful year in the urgent care marketplace. Then again, you could say that at the end of most years in our dynamic, ever-growing industry. That begs the question, what did set 2018 apart from other years? Mergers and acquisitions, evolving technologies, and workplace trends certainly impact what you do every day. But …

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