Dermatologic, Allergic & Toxicologic Issues

• Review rapid assessment of stings, allergic reactions, and toxic exposures—including how simple hot water irrigation relieves pain from bee and wasp stings—and highlights subtle but serious injuries like high-pressure injection wounds that require urgent surgical evaluation.

Infectious Disease Recognition & Testing

• Topics include interpreting TB tests, using PCR for HSV, addressing STI trends, and recognizing complications of HIV-related lymphadenopathy. Clinicians also learn to identify epiglottitis, manage medication-induced neuropsychiatric effects, and detect when viral gastroenteritis becomes complicated by bowel obstruction.

Respiratory & Cardiopulmonary Emergencies

• Focus on diagnosing pneumothorax, distinguishing ACS from musculoskeletal chest pain, and managing dyspnea across special populations, including asthmatics post-influenza, pregnant patients, and postpartum individuals. Pediatric lupus with cardiopulmonary involvement is also explored as an atypical cause of chest symptoms.

Orthopedic & Musculoskeletal Injuries

• This group spans acute injuries and subtle orthopedic pitfalls—such as SCFE in children, Lisfranc injuries, shoulder dislocations, and rib fractures—and teaches clinicians to differentiate ruptured Baker cysts from DVT and recognize tendon avulsions like Jersey finger. Evaluation of hip osteoarthritis and its mimics is also included.

Neurologic & Head/Neck Emergencies

• Urgent care providers learn nerve block techniques for acute headache relief and how to differentiate dangerous postpartum headache causes. This section also emphasizes early detection of spinal epidural abscess presenting as neck pain, given the high stakes of delayed diagnosis.

Endocrine, Hematologic & Metabolic Disorders

• Key topics include identifying subtle pediatric DKA presentations, evaluating severe pediatric iron deficiency anemia, and recognizing when persistent otitis media may mask pediatric leukemia—highlighting the importance of metabolic and hematologic awareness in everyday presentations.

Obstetric & Postpartum Conditions

• Explore urgent care evaluation of postpartum shortness of breath, headache, and abnormal bleeding. Content focuses on recognizing life-threatening conditions such as preeclampsia, cardiomyopathy, VTE, and infection while distinguishing them from normal postpartum physiology.

Oncology & Serious Underlying Disease

• Clinicians learn to spot red flags for malignancy in common complaints, including chronic pediatric cough that may indicate Hodgkin lymphoma and persistent back pain suggestive of vertebral metastases from prostate cancer—reinforcing vigilance for occult disease.

(Topic examples are from The Journal of Urgent Care Medicine™ 2025 articles.)