Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Abstracts in Urgent Care – May 2026

Variation in Pretibial Laceration Management Take Home Point: Assessment and management of pretibial lacerations lack consistent standardized guidelines, which is needed to improve patient outcomes. Citation: Shafi S, Shaw A, Koubeh W, et al. Management of pretibial lacerations: A systematic review. Injury. 2026;57(4):113101. doi: 10.1016/j.injury.2026.113101 Relevance: Pretibial lacerations are commonly encountered in both emergency departments (EDs) and urgent care (UC) settings, especially among older adults. Despite their frequency, management approaches vary widely across settings and …

Gynecologic Causes of Abdominal and Pelvic Pain: Diagnosis and Management

Urgent Message: Abdominal and pelvic pain are common presentations to urgent care. Clinicians need to maintain a broad differential to make the correct diagnosis and offer appropriate treatment. Anisah Chauhdry, MS; Naushair Hussain, DO; Michael B. Weinstock, MD Keywords: pelvic pain; ectopic pregnancy; pelvic inflammatory disease; ovarian torsion; ovarian cysts; dysmenorrhea Editor’s Note: The patient case scenario is hypothetical to enhance educational value. Abstract Causes of abdominal and pelvic pain in reproductive-aged women include many …

26-Year-Old Female With Cough, Shortness of Breath, and Fatigue

A 26-year-old female presents to urgent care with a persistent productive cough for 1 week. Over the past 3 days, she reports progressive shortness of breath and fatigue. She has a history of recurrent pneumonia. Vital signs show the patient is afebrile with normal blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. Physical examination revealed clear lung sounds with diminished air movement in the bilateral bases. Jugular venous distension (JVD) at 4 cm above …

Urgent Care Evaluation and Management of De Quervain Tenosynovitis

Urgent Message: Patients presenting with radial wrist pain that is exacerbated by thumb and wrist motion may raise the suspicion for De Quervain tenosynovitis (DQT). Utilizing a clinically focused framework is important for the evaluation and management of DQT. Jacob Welch OMS-3,William O’Neal MD Keywords: wrist pain, De Quervain tenosynovitis, Finkelstein test, Eichhoff test Editor’s Note: The patient case scenario is hypothetical to enhance educational value. Abstract De Quervain tenosynovitis (DQT) is a frequent cause …

67-Year-Old Man With Dark Patch on Ankle

A 67-year-old man visits urgent care for a lesion on his right ankle that was first noticed 25 years ago. He reports that it has progressively grown larger over the past 6 months. The lesion is painless but is intermittently mildly pruritic. The patient denies any recent injury or past medical history besides chronic venous insufficiency. On dermatologic examination, a discrete dark brown plaque is noted posterior to the lateral malleolus with numerous surrounding spider …

84-Year-Old With Palpitations

An 84-year-old woman presents to urgent care with palpitations that have lasted for several hours. The patient is afebrile, slightly tachypneic on exam, with a blood pressure of 148/97 mm Hg. An ECG is obtained. View the ECG and consider what your diagnosis and next steps would be. Resolution of the case is described on the next page.

The Effect of Computer Use in the Exam Room on Patient Satisfaction in Urgent Care

Urgent Message: The use of a computer in the urgent care examination room does not significantly impact patient satisfaction. As such, clinicians can use medical technologies in the exam room while maintaining confidence in the clinician-patient relationship. Justin Bowles, MD; Mitchell Lopes, MS4; Chaya Pflugeisen, MSc, MEd Keywords: electronic health records; physician-patient relations; patient satisfaction; ambulatory care facilities; communication; surveys and questionnaires Abstract Objectives: Primary care literature has shown that the use of technology in …

From Momentum to Action

May is a time to reflect, reset, and carry forward the momentum we’ve built over the first part of the year. Coming out of our 2026 Urgent Care Convention in Chicago, that momentum feels real and shared by all Urgent Care stakeholders. Over the past several months, we’ve talked about advocacy, about proving our value, and about the importance of showing up for one another as an industry. The Convention brought all of that into …

At Odds: Do Clinical Practice Metrics Incentivize Bad Medicine?

Justin R. Murphy, MMSc, PA-C We live in a world that revolves around data. If you have been in the medical field for a decade or longer, you have observed the trend toward increasingly data-driven medical practice. If you have been practicing more recently, you have lived it. Metrics continually shape our practice patterns and influence our care, and their utilization will only increase. Currently, analytics and artificial intelligence tools cannot directly process human cognition …

Amplify the Practice: Highlights from the 2026 UCA Convention

By Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc — President of Urgent Care Consultants; Senior Editor of The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine The 2026 Urgent Care Association Convention convened in Chicago this April under the theme “Amplify” — and across roughly fifty clinical and practice management sessions, that word kept landing on the same point: amplify the clinician, don’t replace them. Artificial intelligence, the tonal undercurrent of nearly every track, was framed less as an autonomous …

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