Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

A Dead Child, a Grim Reminder: Trust Your Gut If Something Seems Off About a Child’s Injuries

News outlets in New Mexico have renewed calls for governmental investigation into the death of a 4-year-old boy under gruesome circumstances, particularly into how state youth protective services missed obvious signs of abuse that should have triggered intervention. As reported by the Albuquerque Journal, 2 months before James Dunklee Cruz died he was brought to an urgent care center with an injured shoulder, a black eye, and bruising on his penis—all at the hands of …

Concerns About Healthcare Worker Burnout Are at a Fever Pitch—So How Are YOU Doing?

For all the discussion and outreach efforts (including in JUCM and JUCM News) to warn healthcare facilities that burnout is a serious threat to providers and, consequently, patients, the problem has become so widespread that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA writes that it has become a “crisis that is now affecting not only healthcare workers, but the communities they serve.” His department’s report, Addressing Health Worker Burnout—The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on …

Update: The CDC Does an About-Face on Monkeypox Guidance

Just last week, JUCM News noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had classified monkeypox as a Level 2 threat, with a risk of transmission sufficient to warrant wearing a mask while traveling. Now the CDC has backed off a bit, removing the masking recommendation for travelers but maintaining that “people infected with monkeypox [should] wear a mask if they must be around others in their homes if close, face-to-face contact is likely.” …

A Hot Market Has Some Established Operators Stepping Outside Their Comfort Zone

The past few weeks have seen a lot of action on the merger and acquisition front in the urgent care marketplace. The latest deal to come to light brings together a well-established local chain (Texas MedClinic, whose 20 locations are highly visible in San Antonio and Austin) with a private equity-backed, multistate operator (Community Care Partners, whose 90-plus locations stretch across seven states from Washington to Louisiana under the BestMed, SouthStar Urgent Care, and Coastal …

As Visits Swell, Can New Measures Help Stabilize Patient Flow?

Emergency rooms and urgent care centers in some metropolitan areas are struggling under the weight of high patient volumes. As detailed in an article published in the Boston Globe, for example, South Shore Health in Massachusetts is averaging 105 ambulance arrivals daily currently, compared with its more typical 80 to 90 per day in the past. That, naturally, is leading to an overcrowded emergency room (165 patients in the 70-bed ED on a recent day). …

In the Midst of Another COVID Surge, Some Patients Are Still Struggling After the Last One

As the latest Omicron variants continue to spread throughout various sections of the United States, leading to a new surge in COVID-19 cases, it’s important to keep in mind that many patients are still dealing with becoming infected months ago. A special panel convened by the American College of Physicians has issued a guidance specifically on the care of long COVID patients, with the caveat that a proper definition of “long COVID” continues to be …

New Omicron Variants Have Landed in the U.S.—and They’re Moving Fast

As the constant waxing and waning of COVID-19 rates in the United States continues, a pair of relatively newly identified subvariants of Omicron are suddenly being blamed for a growing proportion of new cases. BA.4 and BA.5 accounted for 5.4% and 7.4% of new cases, respectively, in the most recently weekly recap from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After first being identified in South Africa, the pair have been gaining ground in the …

Boosters Don’t Assure Immunity to COVID-19, but They Do Keep Patients Out of the Hospital

As kids are wrapping up the school year and Americans are making plans for summer getaways and attending festivals and other large gatherings, rates of COVID-19 infection are once again creeping up in various parts of the country. In fact, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seem to indicate that the rate of infection may be almost twice as high in boosted individuals than in those who have been vaccinated but not …

The U.S. Is in Another Wave of COVID-19—the Sixth One, if You’ve Somehow Lost Track

After a few weeks of feeling like we’re moving in the right direction in winning the fight against COVID-19, it appears that the United States is instead sinking back into familiar, if unfortunate, territory. As noted by experts from Johns Hopkins, Duke, and Harvard universities quoted in a report from USA Today, however, indications are that we will fare far better than in summers past. For one thing, hospitalizations are lower than in previous waves, …

It’s Time to Get More Cautious About Spreading Virus (and We Don’t Mean COVID This Time)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just increased the alert level for monkeypox to 2, indicating that the risk of infection is high enough to warrant wearing a mask while traveling. The virus has been confirmed in this country after previously being reported in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. While it has been reported that infection has occurred more frequently among men who have sex with men compared with other groups, spread …