I know a lot of us have had experiences in Sioux Falls in which the healthcare systems left frustrations. Go outside of South Dakota to other areas and those frustrations could be doubled easily.

My girlfriend Brooke and I ventured out to Las Vegas for a weekend. Brooke wasn't feeling well before the trip, but figured South Dakota spring allergies would disappear once we hit the Vegas dry heat. That unfortunately wasn't the case.

Brooke continued to come down with an awful cold that settled in her throat. We attended the David Copperfield show at the MGM (in my own personal attempt to hope that Copperfield could somehow heal her with magical powers...or something) but she was done after the show. She needed to see a doctor of some sort. I quickly pulled up the Google machine on my phone and searched for an urgent care in the area.

Spoiler: there wasn't any OPEN during that time. Sure, the Walgreens on the strip has a walk-in clinic but it was closed. Other urgent care hospitals were reading as closed. We talked with the concierge and was informed that we would have to go to the emergency room.

As we all know in this area, the ER is purely the last resort. The ER is used just by those who need to use it, while any form of a cold an urgent care is right around the corner. In Las Vegas, and probably other big cities, the ER is used for everything.

Upon walking into the ER, Brooke was greeted with a desk to register and timestamp her arrival. We then took a seat in the "waiting area" as she was called up to the registration desk to confirm her visit. She was then called up to see a physician assistant who gave an initial diagnosis, and was told to go back to the waiting area.

The emergency room and the waiting area are all together in the same room. There are no specific, private rooms for anyone. The difference between the areas is a line of desks that separates the room in half. Anytime Brooke was in the "room" I could watch and see what was going on from the waiting area.

After the initial diagnosis by the assistant, the doctor came into the waiting area and called for Brooke. Before she could stand up, he came right over and checked her throat for possible strep right in the waiting room. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic and sent us out the door.

I know the question is what did we expect? Time wise it wasn't a huge struggle as the visit lasted about a hour and a half with only eight people visiting the ER. I think the expectation was for it to be more like what we have here. To have the ability to have own private room, a urgent care center that is actually open to avoid the ER, and a actual test to figure out what was wrong would have been nice.

Thankfully Brooke is feeling much better following her Vegas battle. The experience for both of us though made us realize that what we have in Sioux Falls is amazing compared to big cities around the country.

Just another case of not knowing what we have until it isn't available any more. I'm much more grateful for the services we have here.

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