Urgent Care Medicine

Urgent care medicine incorporates clinical services provided at urgent care centers into a growing specialty consisting of administration, education, research and scholarship, and community service. Growth of the urgent care medicine industry over the past few decades can be attributed to the general population’s need to seek convenient, high-quality, low-cost care, in response to overcrowding in emergency departments and limited hours and physician shortages in primary care physician offices. In this chapter, we discuss the history of urgent care medicine, we provide facts regarding the current state of urgent care medicine, and we suggest the roles of the emergency medicine physician working in an urgent care setting (providing education in the community regarding when to go to an urgent care center versus an emergency department, conducting research and scholarship in the field of urgent care medicine, and spearheading emergency and disaster preparedness in their community). Finally, the author provides reasons why emergency medicine physicians transition to urgent care medicine, including the positives and negatives associated with working clinically in the field, based on the experience of those who have made this transition.