Urgent care medicine eyes specialty status

Two new fellowships emerge as demand for urgent care services grows quickly.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. June 12, 2006.

In August, Shelly Verma, MD, will start a one-year urgent care medicine fellowship in Cleveland, the first of its kind.

"It's a nice medium between family practice and emergency medicine, and there's the opportunity to do procedures," Dr. Verma said. "You get to use a lot of clinical skills and diagnostics skills,"

Leaders within urgent care medicine say public demand for fast access to health care is pushing growth for more urgent care centers. At the same time, they say, there's growing interest among physicians who practice urgent care medicine to win recognition as a specialty. To this end, urgent care professional organizations have begun to set standards for their field, have established an accreditation board and have developed fellowships for new physicians wanting to go directly into the field instead of first practicing in primary care or emergency medicine for several years.

Right now, two urgent care physician organizations are spearheading separate fellowships. The Cleveland fellowship will begin training three physicians this summer, while a similar one-year fellowship in Columbus, Ohio, will likely begin in 2007 with two fellows. Each fellowship is also being done in collaboration with an academic medical center and a for-profit urgent care company.

Lee Resnick, MD, medical director for University Hospitals Urgent Care Centers and director of the fellowship in Cleveland, said there's also a practical reason his company is helping fund a fellowship: It's a way to improve hiring.