Two nights ago, I was standing in my kitchen holding my cat, Shadow, pictured to the right. A noise startled him and he decided to use my palm as a launching pad to catapult himself across the room to hide.
Unfortunately, as my hand is made of FLESH and his back claws are TALONS OF DEATH, I sustained a pretty nasty scratch, pictured below. I wasn't sure exactly how "bad" the scratch was as far as animal scratches go... it wasn't as bad as if a bear had mauled me, but it was probably the worst cat scratch I've ever had, and as the happy owner of five cats, I've had quite a few. I decided to just wash it out and slap a band aid over it. However, when I woke up yesterday morning it wasn't any better. It was actually stinging more than it was before, and was looking a little swollen.
Man, I don't feel like going to the doctor for this, I thought. Who has time to sit and wait for 50 minutes in the waiting room, and then another 30 in the office? And that was even IF my doctor could see me today. I realized that I haven't actually seen a live MD in the office for a long time. I always see a nurse practitioner, which is just fine by me. Anyone who can make me feel better is all right with me! Then I remembered someone mentioning the minute clinic at CVS.
The Minute Clinic is basically a one-person manned clinic IN CVS. How much more convenient can you get?! I found one close to me, as not all CVSs have them, and decided to take a ride over and see how long the wait was to see someone.
The door was closed, so I entered my info into the little touch screen waiting list and saw that I was at the top of the list. Sweet! I looked around at brochures and watched the little video provided in the area for what services are provided by the nurse practitioner, the costs for services, etc. I was pleased to see so much information presented to the patient at once, and in different formats!
The actual visit was like something out of a training video. The nurse practitioner introduced herself to me and shook my hand. She asked me all kinds of questions about my cat (was it mine, was it up to date with shots, etc.), about what happened, how I've been treating it myself at home. All of this before she even did any physical exam of anything! She was gentle with the exam, and then asked if I minded if she turned her back to me while she typed up the notes. She actually ASKED me if I minded! While she was doing her notes, she started asking about medicine allergies, and accessed the CVS pharmacy database to see what other medicines I was on to check for interactions. She sent the prescriptions right back to the CVS pharmacy (which, I should note, is a separate entity from the Minute Clinic) and asked me if I had any other questions. Then she printed out all the discharge paperwork - including all the notes she typed up. I almost laughed out loud thinking of that epsiode of Seinfeld where Elaine tries desperately to get a hold of her chart to see what her doctors are writing in their notes about her.
I don't remember ever feeling so satisfied with an interaction with a medical professional. I received wonderful care from someone who actually seemed compassionate and interested. And the icing on the cake? When I got home and logged into my gmail account I already had emails waiting in my inbox to add the service into my google health account, along with a survey about my visit. I'm sure you can guess how I rated it. ;)
I would highly reccommend heading over to the Minute Clinic for anything that isn't too serious. They accept some insurances, and have pretty good prices for folks who don't. Check out their site for full details. This patient was utterly impressed!
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