Lessons learned at urgent care

I was naïve in the extreme. I had a bunch of stitches in my head that needed removing. The stitches were the result of Mohs surgery for basal cell carcinomas. I didn’t want to make the 40-mile drive to the surgeon’s office—an hour and a half in rush-hour traffic—to have them removed. I couldn’t remove the stitches myself because some of them were in a hard-to-see places, such as down my jaw and behind my ear. I had no luck trying to talk my husband or friends into removing them. I didn’t want to go to the local doctor, five minutes away, because I thought there’d be too much rigmarole with setting the appointment, getting weighed, having blood pressure checked, and so on. I thought I could just breeze into an urgent care place and they’d remove the stitches. That’s where the naivete came in.

The facility, about a 25-minute drive from my home, was large. (It’s part of the Sutter conglomerate.) When I walked into the building around 10:30 AM, the waiting room was filled with obviously sick people—drooping heads, coughing, masks over faces. Three receptionists manned the counter, which had a “Wait Here” sign in front of it. The receptionist told me that the wait was at least an hour. She gave me a clipboard with four pieces of paper for me to read, fill out, and sign. After about half an hour, I was called in (oh boy!). Alas, I was only to be weighed and vital signs checked. I protested: “I’m just getting some stitches out!!.” My blood pressure was high—no surprise. The technician also checked my temperature, heart rate, and blood oxygen and asked a bunch of routine questions.

An hour later, I finally saw the doctor, whom I liked. After assuring him that my surgeon gave the OK for someone else to remove the stitches, I lay on the table, and he made use of his special tools, light, and magnifying glass to remove the stitches. He applied an ointment and bandages. During all of this I asked him if this crowd was normal. He assured me that it was—especially in flu season. Apparently, people are unable to get immediate appointments with their primary care physicians, so their only recourse is urgent care. By the time I’d arrived that morning, three people had been sent to the emergency room.

I left feeling guilty for taking the spot of someone who was really sick, and stupid for thinking that a simple procedure might actually be simple.

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