Retail Medical Centers are those clinics usually run by a nurse practitioner who is there to treat simple and common conditions such as colds, sore throats, and Ut infections.
From the start, doctors did not like this idea because they reasoned that first if you’re anything less than a doctor you can’t possibly be able to diagnose a sore throat or cold, and second they said that it would interfere with the relationship between the doctor and patient.
It would seem that they are wrong on both counts. First doctors do not always diagnose and treat correctly, and second the nurse practitioners go to school for years and often have many years experience.
A couple of recent studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of patients that go to these clinics have no regular doctor, no health insurance, and no regular medical care. It seems logical to me that instead of having these people running to the ER to be treated for such minor and common ailments, or even tie up a doctors time with these things, it’s better for everyone that they visit these inexpensive clinics.
On top of that, any nurse worth her salt will be able to recognize conditions that may be out of her league and will refer the patient to a doctor or hospital. In this writers opinion these clinics are sorely needed and wanted. I believe in the long run they will save the entire medical system money as well as the patient involved.