Finding the Right Medical Care

Even in today’s world of advanced medical care and vaccines, disease and injury are a fact of life, but today’s robust health infrastructure offers many options for relief and help whenever any patient, young or old, needs medical assistance. Hospitals, urgent care enters, pediatricians, and more are ready to help anyone who needs it, and care can often be just a phone call or Internet search away. Doctors, nurses, and trained physicians are on hand to provide whatever aid is needed.

Where to Get Care>

Medical professionals work at several general types of services or health centers, from common urgent care centers to the emergency room (ER) and operating rooms in hospitals to private physicians and pediatricians, and a medical professional’s offered services may be affected by where they work. Any patient should know what sort of facility to visit for price, convenience, and of course, medical services offered.

A hospital is often one’s first thought for any medical case, but in fact, the ER is best used for particular types of injury or disease, while other maladies are best taken care of elsewhere. A hospital’s ER is often meant for patients with life threatening conditions, and if too much room is taken up by those with less serious conditions, that could cause a problem, not to mention how ER care can be costly and may not be worth it for lesser conditions.

The ER is the best option for urgent care when a life threatening, or potentially life threatening, condition presents itself in a person. Difficulty breathing and serious chest pain, for example, could mean suffocation or dangerous oxygen loss in the former case or possibly the onset of a heart attack in the latter case, and a stroke, whether regular or heat stroke, can also necessitate a visit to the ER to prevent brain damage. Urgent care centers will not have the equipment or trained staff for these conditions and more, but an ER will. Bullet and stab wounds, broken arms or legs, head injuries, and injured eyeballs are also conditions that necessitate an ER visit, where physicians and doctors can provide immediate relief with the proper expertise, equipment, and medicine.

Urgent care centers are much more common and affordable than a hospital ER, and they can often be found with an Internet search for “24 hour urgent care near me.” These facilities may be very efficient, and may see three patients every hour, with average wait times around 15 minutes (although this is subject to variance). At these facilities, nurses and some physicians will be available, and they can handle non life-threatening conditions such as rashes and allergies, head colds and the flu, broken fingers, coughs, and those who need medications refilled. Some urgent care centers are in fact based in retail centers such as Target or Walgreens, making them retail care centers. These facilities may be easy to visit and find parking for, since they are built into retailers designed to handle a lot of guests every day. Prescription medicine can be bought or refilled here. And in rare cases where it is necessary, the staff of an urgent care center may refer a patient to a hospital.

Personal physicians cannot be visited on demand as urgent care centers can be, but can visited by appointment. These doctors have detailed knowledge of each patient’s medical records, history, and needs, and can use this intimate understanding to carefully diagnose and treat problems, or if necessary, refer a patient to another facility.

Pediatricians specialize in medicine for those under age 18, all the way to infants. Some diseases or maladies common to this age group such as ear infections can be diagnosed and treated, and these doctors are deeply familiar with a child or infant’s anatomy and particular health needs. Pediatricians can even diagnose mental problems in children that are also common adults, from anxiety to depression.