Patient First Voted Best Workplace
Summary
Sowers had quit his job as an emergency room doctor at a Richmond hospital and struck out on his own with a concept that in those days was considered crazy: a walk-in clinic offering convenient care for minor health problems. In a sport jacket and tie, he maintains the bearing of a clinician and easily mingled among the white-coated doctors, physician assistants and nurses in the teeming medical center on Midlothian Turnpike. As is the case across medical jobs, the potential for burnout among doctors, physician assistants and nurses is high in urgent care: Providers at urgent-care clinics can see six to eight patients per hour, according to industry statistics. Surveys consistently say emergency room doctors — who see high-intensity trauma cases and work brutal hours, including overnight shifts — have the highest levels of burnout among all physicians. His colleagues in the medical field, he said, were “incredulous.’’ But it struck Sowers as absurd that hospital emergency rooms filled with cut fingers, sprains and sore throats on nights and weekends.