My third rotation was Ambulatory medicine at StatCare, located in Hicksville, NY. Transitioning from second rotation (the ER) this one definitely felt more calm, even though the patient load was still quite high! Daily, there would be average of 60 patients—this includes patients who come in for rapid and PCR tests, as people in the community are still avid about being tested for COVID. Fortunately, since there was not much of a surge of COVID cases during my rotation, I was able to see a bit of a variety of cases. Most patients we saw were patients who had contracted a viral URI—therefore a lot of my time was spent educating patients on supportive care and explaining how antibiotic therapy would not be sufficient for viral infections. Surprisingly, I saw many flu cases as well! With COVID vaccines and booster shots being enforced, I found that a lot of patients had forgotten to get their influenza vaccines, and so we saw a high volume of Influenza A cases.

Other than the large volume of viral URI and flu cases, I did get to see otitis media, epistaxis, and a few lacerations, which kept my time in StatCare interesting! Additionally, I was able to administer intradermal, subcutaneous and IM injections which was something I didn’t get to do during my Family Med rotation. I was grateful that I was able to practice this skill at this site.  I enjoyed working with the PA and NP at this site as well as the scribes and MAs, and thoroughly enjoyed my time here.