Is it possible to open your own "doc-in-a-box" urgent care center after only completing an internship?

Is it possible to open your own "doc-in-a-box" urgent care center after only completing an internship?

Yes (at least in NYS) you can be liscensed to practice as a "General Practioner" but only in urgent care settings.

Is it possible to open your own "doc-in-a-box" urgent care center after only completing an internship?

Funny you should ask this question... As a matter of fact, one of the residents in my FP program did that very thing after he was fired from the program and unable to finish. But I would never recommend such a course of action. Suggest that you look over the threads under military medicine concerning GMO's (general medical officers).

What is approximately the income of a doctor with only 1 year of internship working in urgent care?

I think I read another thread on this subject and it had a website that listed each states requirements for licensing. This is the link for the state medical board federation.
http://www.fsmb.org/

Having a full and unrestricted license is "yes or no". You can't get a license for "urgent care only".

The deal with "doc in the box" urgent care is that you don't have privileges in any hospital - you're a licensed doc that opens an office specializing in minimal or low-acuity cases with a walk-in (no appointments) scheduling system.

As such, anyone who has a full and unrestricted license can open an urgent care (or work in one) - the intricacies include, though, who will give you a loan to open a business when you only had 1 year of training? If it's an already-open business, it's the purview of the current employees and/or owners. If the urgent care is owned by a hospital/health system, THEY may require other things (like eligibility for medical staff), but that's less likely.

Because of the exigiencies of urgent care, FM, EM, and Med/Peds are well-suited. IM and general surgery are also suited, but less so considering the variety of cases that come in. The problem is the mentality that everyone that presents to Urgent Care is not sick, and, the less training you have, the more likely you may be to miss these patients - it's a real gut-check to say it's gastroenteritis or GERD and send the patient home, instead of sending them over to the ED.

Now, the flip side of that is that there ARE a bunch of non-emergent, straightforward cases, which is why you'll find EM groups manning stand-alone EDs (as one guy told me, "think of Urgent Care on steroids"), and urgent care centers, since there's A LOT of money to be had. The less training you have, the more challenging it will be to find someone to hire you.

Don't count on being able to work in Urgent Care without being BE/BC in EM or Primary Care, most require this.

Don't count on being able to work in Urgent Care without being BE/BC in EM or Primary Care, most require this.

ID, didn't you mention something about one of the residents you worked with going into in urgent care after he/she got kicked out of residency before finishing? How did that work out?

ID, didn't you mention something about one of the residents you worked with going into in urgent care after he/she got kicked out of residency before finishing? How did that work out?

The only reason he is able to do this is because it is his own "shop", the last I heard he was having big trouble. Don't know the specifics.

Don't count on being able to work in Urgent Care without being BE/BC in EM or Primary Care, most require this.

What about dudes that have Preventive Medicine, Occupational Medicine or Aerospace Medicine residencies? Wouldnt that count as primary care?

The American Board of Urgent Care Medicine dont list them as specialties that can challenge thier diplomate exam.

I think they should reconsider. Id love the prospect of doing urgent care with aerospace medicine as a residency.

What do you think guys?

when i was doing my medicine rotations as a 3rd year, we had a family practice "fellow" who was the chief.
now, we were like... wtf? an fp fellow!?!

turns out, after her internship, she went on to work in urgent care/er...
and ended up killing a few people because of her lack of medical knowledge.

now, i'm sure we will all be responsible for a few lives, unfortunately, however... she was brought up on criminal charges. the result, she was not able to practice medicine for 5 years. then she had to go thru an extended residency. that's why she was a "fellow" she wasnt. the program was just being nice. she was like a 9th year fp resident.

but after she finished her 9th year of residency, she was finally granted her licence to practice again.

what she advised us to do: finish your residency. a few $$ is NOT worth 15 years!

What are you talking about?? "I'd love to do UC with an aerospace residency."

That is kind of like saying, "I would love to do Pediatric Heart Surgery with a Radiology residency or I would love to do Radiology with a pediatric Residency." Seriously, I worry about the patient who comes in with "gastroenteritis" and is seen by someone who has done a preventive medicine residency. Because patients come into UC centers all the time with "gastro" and although they ususally go home with the diagnosis of gastro, sometimes the diagnosis is "ICH" "MI" "appendicitis" "pyloric stenosis" "ectopic pregnancy" .

Seriously, shouldn't you have some experience in children, vaginas, grown-ups, nursing home patients, etc. before doing UC?

The unfortunate thing, is that their are MANY urgent care/doc in the box/WalMart quick stop opportunities for Docs with only intenship training. MANY MANY MANY. Those places are currently filled with NPs with little training period (honestly many go from one day being a RN to the next day being a NP). This is not a statement of pride, but fact.
I am board certified in Emergency Medicine and I see this daily.

If you are in a state with few residency trained EM physicians (Southwest, Midwest, Northwest)...you will see it.