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When I first started working with Scribe-X, they placed me in a small urgent care clinic located in Roseburg, Oregon. I had specifically requested to work at a clinic that dealt with disadvantaged populations in an underserved area because I eventually wanted to practice medicine in a rural community, so this placement was perfect for me.

During classroom and onsite training, I discovered that the workflow of an urgent care is very different from its counterpart, family medicine, as none of the visits are scheduled and you never know how many patients you will see in a day. This unpredictability infuses the workday with spontaneity, and the different complaints and cases you see also keep the shifts interesting and engaging.

Exposure to Severe Cases

Urgent care is also very different from its other counterpart, emergency medicine, because it’s not the last line of care. While urgent care can and sometimes does see serious cases, they are always moved to a hospital, which is more equipped to deal with traumas and severe cases.

On the flip side, though, many people will get their first evaluation in urgent care, so I still saw a lot of heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. All in all, working at an urgent care gives you the best of both emergency and family medicine and is one of the most interesting, spontaneous fields to scribe within.

Working with Every Speciality

By far, urgent care visits can be some of the most interesting, varied cases within the field of medicine. For example, when working within a specialty like orthopedics, one would see the same small number of people throughout the year, and there would not be a lot of variety in visits.

By contrast, urgent care can and does deal with every complaint and body system, so you learn a lot when scribing for one. So while I was there, I not only memorized almost every muscle system that can be strained within the body, but I also learned how to read EKGs and perform in-depth neurological testing.

I like to refer to urgent care clinics as jack-of-all-trades institutions because we truly saw every type of case, and I learned a little bit about every specialty within medicine. If you want to go to medical school but aren’t sure which specialty you might be interested in, working at an urgent care will expose you to every style and specialty of medicine and help you figure out what interests you.

Becoming Better Prepared for Your Future

When I started, I trained with every provider that worked at the urgent care clinic. Now that I’ve worked in different specialties for a while and have more experience as a medical scribe, I realize how unique this is and how valuable it is to work with a multitude of different providers within one clinic.

In my opinion, the best part about working at an urgent care by far is that you are often trained with all the providers at the clinic and are able to work with different individuals. Working with so many physicians exposes you to different practice styles, preferred medications, and even bedside manners. This type of work flow gave me a global, comprehensive view of practice styles and helped me decide what kind of physician I want to one day be, even before entering medical school.

There are also people with different degrees in urgent care, and within my clinic I worked with MDs, DOs, PAs, and one FNP. This variety really cleared up in my mind what each degree and career path entails and the differences between each. All in all, working at an urgent care was an extremely rewarding experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone that thinks it looks interesting.