If you live or work Downtown and sustain a minor injury or illness, you no longer have to leave the neighborhood for treatment.
First Stop Urgent Care is open at 47 W. Adams St., between Laura and Main streets.
Practice administrator Mandy Gast said First Stop opened Downtown to offer the more than 25,000 people who live and work in the urban core a way to be treated sooner than by having to make an appointment with their doctor.
“Everybody goes to work sick and they don’t want to have to wait to see their primary care physician,” Gast said. “We can treat patients on their lunch hour or when they’re on their way home.”
First Stop also is a convenience for guests staying in Downtown hotels and it’s the closest walk-in clinic to the residential communities along Riverside Avenue in Brooklyn, Gast said.
The clinic is staffed by nurse practitioners who are licensed to treat common ailments such as allergies, ear and eye infections, flu symptoms, upper respiratory infections and rashes.
They also treat acute injuries including burns, sprains, fractures, lacerations and pulled muscles and can prescribe drugs with the exception of narcotics.
The clinic stocks most common antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids.
That eliminates a stop at a pharmacy for many patients, Gast said.
Pre-employment drug testing and routine physical examinations and immunizations also are available. The clinic has an on-site laboratory.
“We don’t treat emergencies, we treat urgencies,” said Rick Albarran, an advanced registered nurse practitioner.
The Downtown location is the second for First Stop. The Jacksonville Beach clinic opened in March and a third clinic is scheduled to open in November in the Bartram Park area.
The First Stop Urgent Care Downtown clinic is open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday. Appointments are not required but may be made by calling (904) 717-9043 or online at firststopurgentcareclinic.com.
@DRMaxDowntown
(904) 356-2466