Blog Post: 3/29/16

Recently, I have started shadowing a doctor who works at an urgent care center run by an insurance company, Cigna. However, even though it is run as Emergency Room, there are a few difference. One is that they don't accept many emergent cases as in an ambulance does not arrive and deliver someone with a gun shot wound who is bleeding out. Instead, people come into the waiting room and prove that they have the insurance needed to have them undergo medical care. Now, here is the actual flow of the urgent care center. 

First, patients come in and provide their information to a nurse at the front. She then checks their insurance, observes their issues and processes their paperwork. After that, they get a wrist band and are brought into see another round of nurses. These nurses then do a very important and sacred job: they triage. Basically, they look at the patients issues, blood pressure, other health issues and assess how problematic they might be and how in danger they actually are. After that, they write up a chart for them and put them in one of two rooms. One room is simple with all the general amenities of a general physicians clinical room. The other room is like a hospital room with heart monitors and an oxygen supply. Then, after that, the doctors get the chart and are able to see the patient and provide curative measures such as medication or run labs. 

Now, what is cool about this urgent care center is that it has its own lab and they are able to run some of their own tests. This is very practical because they can do what they need to do as fast as they can. The operation itself flowed really well and it seemed as if things went very smoothly throughout the day. The doctors and the nurses together work in unity and with great spirits. Overall, it is an awesome and fun environment that is exceedingly efficient and beneficial for the patients. It really is a great experience and opportunity.