Clinical

For the first time in almost a decade, someone has been diagnosed with polio in the United States. Per a report from CNN, it’s suspected that the virus identified in the Rockland County, New York man originated in another country. While he himself had not traveled internationally recently, it’s believed that he was infected by an individual who was vaccinated with the oral vaccine still used in some areas of the world. (The U.S. stopped …

A quick look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 tracker reveals that new cases have been rising slowly for more than a month, with hospitalization rates rising even more steadily. Some cities, such as Chicago, are raising their official warning levels to “high.” Los Angeles is looking at reinstituting a mask mandate for indoor spaces. What’s missing is the widespread sense of crisis, or even panic, that has gripped previous surges in …

It’s high season for tick bites and related diseases. As an article just published by Patient Care reminds us, there’s far too much misinformation leading the public (and probably some clinicians) to fail to recognize the signs and dangers of Lyme disease. For example, patients ultimately diagnosed with Lyme disease do not always have the telltale “bullseye” rash. Further, in spite of its Connecticut-based moniker, its spread is not limited to the East Coast. And …

It’s not uncommon for patients with nonemergent eye complaints to present to urgent care. What might not be top of mind for male patients with ocular symptoms, however, is whether use of erectile dysfunction medications could be the root of the problem. An article recently published by JAMA Network might move you to consider it, though. “Regular use of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors for [ED] was associated with increased risks of serous retinal detachment (SRD), …

As an urgent care provider you may not treat cancer, but you certainly can expect to treat cancer patients. And when you do, you have the opportunity to alter the course of the patient’s care and quality of life in any number of ways. Take the case of an elderly patient who presented to a new primary care physician with severe numbness and tingling in his fingers and toes, as relayed in an article published …

If you have a minute—literally—you might be able to learn something that could help you with the next patient walking through the door. Ana Echenique, MD, DABR, clinical director, quality management for Experity Teleradiology and an occasional JUCM contributor, has created a Twitter account dedicated to presenting interesting x-ray cases that include quick explanations and pearls that provide potentially valuable insights. Dr. Echenique plans to post an anonymized case every day for educational purposes. You …

For all intents and purposes, life seems to have returned to normal more than any other time since March 2020. Masks are scarce, restaurants are crowded, and movie theaters are putting up blockbuster numbers. It can be easy to forget that the pandemic is not, in fact, over quite yet and that the threat of widespread reinfection may be more real than we’re comfortable acknowledging. California, for one, is struggling with a new wave of …

JUCM News readers know that there’s been an increase in both clinician burnout and patient visits related to mental health complaints and crises over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also known is the fact that physician shortages and other staffing issues are proving to be challenging for urgent care centers all over the country. A new article published by The Journal of the American Medical Association notes that the clinician shortage is actually a …

It’s been established that being “fully vaccinated” against SARS-CoV-2 means not only the full course of initial shots but also all available booster shots. One challenge in advising patients accordingly is that recommendations keep changing. The latest revelation from the Food and Drug Administration is that doses of booster shots may be modified by autumn 2022 in order to include some version of the omicron variant that has proved to be dominant since its discovery. …

It’s only the second week of summer, but already some parts of the country are experiencing temperatures we don’t usually see until the “dog days” of August. Virginia, for one, was seeing record temperatures for this time of year, with extended periods of 90 degrees and above predicted as reported by WFIR News Talk Radio. With that comes concerns from the commonwealth health department that emergency rooms will soon be hit with larger numbers of …