# Emergency Room or Urgent Care? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 15, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257 "2012-06-15T17:08:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257/41 "2015-08-10T04:59:13Z")
> [@ladyinthelake](#): > > A decent medical professional should be able to see signs and symptoms of dehydration. In my personal opinion if you are feeling weak, and are dealing with dehydration, don’t chance it at the urgent care. **They don’t administer IV fluids, and may dismiss the severity of your situation, or may end up directing you to the ER in the end anyways since they can’t administer fluids…** Dehydration is serious business when it comes to your health. Don’t chance it. Not necessarily true. It depends on the facility. The Urgent Care where I work is where we send our clinic patients for things like IV fluids and cardiac workups. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257/42 "2015-08-10T06:05:40Z")
It’s been three years and the OP’s last post before he was banned was in March so it looks like it worked out. My rule of thumb is that if I can transport myself and can wait until Urgent Care is open if need be, then UC it is. They can always advise me to go on to the ER if need be. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257/43 "2015-08-10T12:07:44Z")
> [@ladyinthelake](#): > > I hade gotten bronchitis as a teenager, and it was the middle of summer in Texas, everything I tried to drink or eat was painful to my throat and I really had no appetite. It was a Sunday so my mom thought she would take me the the urgent care clinic. After waiting several hours to be seen, the dr finally saw me and decided that yes I did have bronchitis so he wrote an Rx and gave me a steroid shot and that was it. > > Well as my mom was at the payment desk, I had walked out to the foyer of the clinic and was just waiting for her…the next thing I know I wake up and there are EMTs surrounding me. I was so severely dehydrated that I had collapsed and hit my head on the marble floor. So the clinic had called 911 to bring the EMTs with the ambulance. I spent 8 hours in ICU at the hospital ER they took me to. After I was moved out of the ICU to a room, I remained in the hospital for 4 days. > > A decent medical professional should be able to see signs and symptoms of dehydration. In my personal opinion if you are feeling weak, and are dealing with dehydration, don’t chance it at the urgent care. They don’t administer IV fluids, and may dismiss the severity of your situation, or may end up directing you to the ER in the end anyways since they can’t administer fluids… Dehydration is serious business when it comes to your health. Don’t chance it. Great story, worth the read, who cares if it’s an old thread 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257/44 "2015-08-10T13:35:36Z")
> [@ladyinthelake](#): > > So the clinic had called 911 to bring the EMTs with the ambulance. I spent 8 hours in ICU at the hospital ER they took me to. After I was moved out of the ICU to a room, I remained in the hospital for 4 days. Urgent care clinics have a pretty good protocol for what they can and can’t see a patient for; the lawyers and the doctors want to make sure of that for liability reasons. If you go in, and there’s any question, they’ll call an ambulance for you if you need it, or they’ll tell you to take it to the ER or your primary care physician if if’s something they can’t treat properly in the scope of the clinic. So for example, if you’re bleeding very badly, they’ll call and ambulance and do their best at first aid, but they’re not going to repair arteries or anything like that. Similarly, for situations like **ladyinthelake’s** they’ll call the ambulance. If you show up with high blood pressure, depending on how high, they may either call an ambulance for you, or tell you to see your primary care physician. They’re probably not going to prescribe you Lisinopril and the DASH diet at an urgent care clinic. But if you need 4 stitches on your finger, or a boil lanced, or Tamiflu, they’re perfectly suitable for that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257/45 "2015-08-10T15:54:27Z")
As the OP is no longer with us, I’m going to close this one down. **ladyinthelake** , welcome to the SDMB! Feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue the discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-room-or-urgent-care/625257.md?page=2)