Practice Management
Where staff and patients of the opposite sex or same-sex orientation are together in private, there is a risk for perceived or actual inappropriate advances, or worse. An urgent care operator in Georgia is grappling with such a situation at this very moment, as a medical assistant was arrested and charged with improper sexual contact by an employee or agent in the first degree. A patient alleged that the MA made “unwanted sexual contact with …
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After months of increasing cases of COVID-19, accompanied by rises in associated hospitalizations and deaths, data amassed from state and local health departments by The New York Times indicate that the country may have turned a corner in its fight against COVID-19. From September 22 to October 5, new infections were down to approximately 102,000 per day while deaths fell 22% compared with the previous 2-week period. That good news comes simultaneously with ongoing confusion …
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For every person who incorrectly insists the COVID-19 isn’t safe because it was rushed through the approval process there’s one who has already gotten the vaccine and is now teething at the bit to get a booster shot. While it’s unclear at this time what role boosters will play in fighting the pandemic down the road, for now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has specified that urgent care providers and other healthcare professionals …
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Owing to the facts that adults have been eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine longer than children (with many children still not able to do so) and schools have been back in session for more than a month now, cases among children have grown to the extent that they now make up a disproportionate share of the U.S. caseload. According to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics, children make up 22% of the U.S. …
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The fact that COVID-19 cases in adults continue to occur in great numbers—and (mainly unvaccinated) patients continue to die—may overshadow the fact that the rate of new cases nationally is dropping. As of October 6, according to data collected by The New York Times from state and local health agencies, new daily cases are now at their lowest point since August 6 of this year. This has led Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food …
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One of the secondary consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially early on, has been that patients battling chronic conditions like hypertension, endocrine disorders, and arthritis took a step back from their ongoing care due to concerns about the virus. While that made sense at various points, the fact remains that they could be at greater risk for complications from their condition without even knowing it. This is certainly true of patients with diabetes. A study …
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Drive through many residential neighborhoods in the U.S. and you’re likely to see banners raging against mask mandates for schoolchildren. Grassroots organizations have even taken to buying space on billboards decrying the “cruelty” of making children wear masks and ridiculing the notion that doing so offers any protection at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would probably beg to differ, however, as data from a newly released study show there is a distinct …
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As JUCM News readers know, it wasn’t that long ago that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first recommended that all pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19. So it may be especially striking that they’ve already renewed that call with greater emphasis, announcing that they recommend “urgent action to increase coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination among people who are pregnant, recently pregnant (including those who are lactating), who are trying to become pregnant now, …
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Urgent message: The COVID-19 worldwide pandemic has changed sports as we know it. Returning athletes back to sport safely continues to be widely debated among physicians in cardiology, primary care, infectious disease, and sports medicine. The return-to-play process after a COVID-19 infection will depend on the severity of their infection, duration of symptoms in the context of any concerning past medical history, and/or family history. Brian Harvey, DO and Natalie Stork, MD CASE PRESENTATION A …
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Though multisystem inflammatory syndrome has been more associated with COVID-19 infection in children (hence, MIS-C), a newly published study delves into the most common characteristics—and risks—of MIS in adults. Urgent care clinicians should be aware that the study indicates that MIS-A presents roughly 4 weeks after acute COVID-19, with hyperinflammation and extrapulmonary multiorgan involvement that the researchers found “difficult to discern from acute biphasic COVID-19 and postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.” Of the 221 patients …
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