As I head into my 20th year in practice, I've found myself wondering, "How did I get here?" As a board certified internist and pediatrician, what led me to urgent care? With she shortage of primary care physicians, why am I not practicing primary care anymore? The answer: I've always been an urgent care clinician, regardless of the practice. I'm also still a primary care physician, even during an urgent care shift. And as a physician leader, I've challenged the boundaries between those environments every step of the way! I'd like to share my years of experience, highlighting along the way how it's possible to find and foster unicorns like me (my boss Sujal Mandavia's words, not mine!) while also challenging traditional urgent care providers to think and practice as effective parts of the primary care medical neighborhood.
Learning Objectives 1. Understand the fundamental differences between urgent care and primary care (from someone who's done both!). 2. Recognize the overlap between the two (it's probably much more than you think). 3. Identify high-yield, low-risk opportunities for starting to expand primary care services in urgent care. 4. Develop pragmatic strategies for battling the "we don't do that here" culture. 5. Recruit and nurture unicorn clinicians.
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