Reflection On Urgent Care

Introduction

In my first clinical rotation I worked in an Urgent Care clinic that has actually turned into the primary care site for a large number of patients. I met a young women age 24, who had been seen in the Urgent Care five times in the past year for Genital Herpes. She did not understand that the suppressive medication ( Famciclovir ) was prescribed to be taken daily to prevent the outbreaks. My preceptor was a bit irritated with the girl- because she was non compliant. She was also frustrated that the girl did not follow up with a GYN provider as she was told too. The girl had good insurance and could go to any GYN in the area. My conclusion was that she was too embarrassed to go to a single provider, and to be accountable for her own health. It was less intimidating to come to Urgent Care.

She had an outbreak while taking the medication a few months ago, so she said it did not work, and quit taking it. I spent about an hour talking to her, and printed out some information from uptodate online. She agreed to take the current prescription for her current outbreak and then go back to the suppressive therapy.

My second clinical was at a geriatric practice where we saw several geriatric female patients who had Herpes, and were taking suppressive therapy. It kind of stuck with me that Herpes is a chronic, sexually transmitted disease that affects a person’s entire life. The focus of my paper will be on females with genital herpes, and the importance of education of these