New Degree of Fellowship (FCUCM)

Our fellowship in the college is now open to all physician members. Fellowship in the College denotes dedication to the specialty and pursuing excellence. Criteria can be found on the application here. The link will take you to UCAOA website. They administer this for us. Until the end of 2017 the need for reccomendation from a current fellow will be waived. Each year fellows are invited to receive their certificates in a formal manner during the Urgent Care Foundation Celebration or our membership meeting at the Fall Conference. If you have question feel free to email us info@coucm.org

A New Name, Renewed Passion for the Specialty

The College has been very busy already this year. The board of directors met in January for two days to plan strategically. I won’t spill all the good things to come but suffice it to say we have relit the furnace and much is on the way. Obviously the first change is our name. We were founded with the name Urgent Care College of Physicians (UCCOP). From the start our purpose was to provide a focused clinical voice for our physicians and as an important step in the development of the specialty of urgent care medicine. Our founding was by request and with funds from the Urgent Care Association of America. Since then we have assisted in providing all the clinical content of UCAOA conferences and other products. We voted in 2016 to change our bylaws to include physician assistants and nurse practitioners as members of the College. This unfortunately made our prior name less applicable, so earlier this year, the board of directors voted to change the name to College of Urgent Care Medicine.

Our decisions toward inclusivity may be obvious to some, but I feel it deserves an explanation. Over a ten year period the UCAOA benchmarking survey has shown that urgent care medicine has changed from a mostly physician provided specialty to a shared responsibility with advanced practice clinicians. We all share the common goal of providing the best patient care possible. We work shoulder-to-shoulder each day to provide this care. Sharing membership and responsibility for the clinical voice of the specialty makes sense.

A name change is not a small endeavor. We will need to completely upgrade our website and all other collateral material. This process will take most of 2017, but will not distract us from our mission

CUCM™ difference
How is CUCM™ different than the various other groups relating to urgent care medicine?
Because CUCM™ was developed in cooperation with UCAOA, CUCM™ leadership brought with it the knowledge, management principles, and organizational philosophies that have allowed UCAOA to become the fastest growing organization in the specialty. This growth continues as CUCM™ builds on this successful foundation. CUCM™, with UCAOA, will continue to offer two clinical conferences per year. CUCM™, with UCAOA, is the only organization in the specialty to support a journal dedicated entirely to Urgent Care Medicine.

Will CUCM™ be offering board certification?
Being a professional society, CUCM™ does not offer board certification in Urgent Care Medicine and has no plans to do so. CUCM™ does support the principle that practicing physicians maintain their certifications in specialty boards for which they are eligible based on their training and experience and which are relevant to the practice of urgent care medicine.