Online CME Course for Urgent Care and Emergency Medicine Clinicians
Know when to drain. Know how to drain.
Know when it needs a different approach.
Diagnose the abscess, control pain, choose the right drainage technique, manage location-specific presentations, and recognize when the patient needs more than routine treatment. Six focused modules, 5 CME credits, and a free Incision & Drainage Practice Kit give you the knowledge, procedural skills, and clinical judgment to manage abscesses with greater confidence.
More Than Incision and Drainage
Abscess care starts before the first incision. Is there a drainable collection? What is the best way to control pain? Should you use conventional I&D or loop drainage? Pack it? Irrigate it? Culture it? Prescribe antibiotics? And does the location or presentation change your approach?
The Abscess Course gives you an evidence-based framework for managing the encounter from diagnosis and pain control through drainage, aftercare, disposition, and documentation.
The common gap
Clinicians may learn incision and drainage through observation, informal instruction, or experience at the bedside. That can leave unanswered questions around anesthesia, procedural technique, anatomical considerations, antibiotic use, packing, drainage options, and which presentations require a different level of care.
The course approach
Build a repeatable approach to diagnosing abscesses, controlling pain, choosing a drainage technique, managing presentations by anatomical location, and recognizing red flags.
Close-up procedural videos, patient encounters, cadaver demonstrations, case studies, and hands-on practice connect the evidence to what you actually do in practice.
Built for immediate clinical impact
Distinguish abscesses from other presentations, understand when procedural treatment is indicated, and recognize when the presentation requires a different approach.
Compare analgesia, local anesthesia, digital and facial nerve blocks, conventional I&D, loop drainage, and other procedural options.
Learn how anatomical location changes evaluation and treatment while strengthening your approach to aftercare, disposition, documentation, and risk management.
Designed for the way you learn
Move through the course at your own pace, see procedures performed up close, work through real-world cases, and reinforce the techniques with your own Incision & Drainage Practice Kit.
From Diagnosis to Procedure to Follow-Up
Define what is—and isn’t—an abscess, learn the criteria for different presentations, strengthen your diagnostic approach, and prepare the supplies and setup needed for treatment.
Compare analgesia, local anesthesia, digital blocks, facial nerve blocks, and other approaches to managing pain during abscess procedures.
Learn evidence-based I&D, loop drainage, procedural options, and the clinical questions surrounding irrigation, packing, cultures, antibiotics, and aftercare.
Take a head-to-toe approach to abscess management and learn how location changes treatment, including the signs and presentations that warrant escalation.
Learn the history questions, red flags, medical decision-making elements, and documentation practices that support safer care and more defensible charts.
Put the course into practice through six real-world cases covering presentation, treatment, disposition, documentation, and risk-management pitfalls.
Choose how you learn best
Focused instruction covering diagnosis, treatment, procedures, and clinical decision-making.
Close-up patient encounters, cadaver demonstrations, and step-by-step procedural videos.
Use the included Incision & Drainage Practice Kit to reinforce techniques yourself.
Six patient cases covering presentation, treatment, disposition, documentation, and risk-management decisions.
Listen to every module when audio fits your schedule better than video.
Go deeper with printable slides, searchable transcripts, bonus procedural videos, and 60+ supplemental resources.
The proof is in the practice
Here’s what your peers have to say about The Abscess Course.
This is a great course. I love the videos that showed me exactly how to do incisions.
Mellada Jacobs, NP
The Abscess Course covered everything I need to know about abscess identification, drainage, and just overall a complete educational deep dive.
Kyle Parsons, PA-C
This is a great course even for ED physicians.
Charles Feronti, DO
From uncertainty to a repeatable approach
Build an evidence-based approach to diagnosis, pain control, drainage, location-specific treatment, aftercare, and documentation—then reinforce the procedures with hands-on practice.
Practical expertise from the front lines
Patrick O’Malley, MD, brings more than two decades of emergency medicine and urgent care experience to a course built around practical clinical decisions, procedural technique, and lessons from the bedside.
Emergency physician, educator, and creator of The Abscess Course
Dr. Patrick O’Malley is an emergency physician and educator with more than 20 years of experience in emergency and urgent care settings. He earned his medical degree from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and completed his residency at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. He created The Abscess Course and The Laceration Course, which are used by urgent care centers, emergency departments, and residency programs across the country. He has presented at national conferences and serves as a peer reviewer for Evidence-Based Urgent Care.
Accredited continuing medical education
Earn credit while strengthening the abscess-management knowledge and procedural skills you use in acute care practice.
Accreditation: EB Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
AMA Credit Designation: EB Medicine designates this internet enduring material for a maximum of 5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
AOA Credit Designation: The Abscess Course is eligible for up to 5 American Osteopathic Association Category 2-B credit hours.
Activity dates: Original release April 1, 2024. Termination date April 1, 2027.
Everything you need to know
Find quick answers about course content, included resources, CME, and group enrollment.
The Abscess Course is designed primarily for urgent care clinicians and is also applicable to advanced practice clinicians working in emergency medicine and other acute-care settings who want to strengthen their knowledge and procedural skills in abscess management.
Your free custom-designed Incision & Drainage Practice Kit includes realistic simulated abscesses and high-quality instruments for hands-on practice.
The course takes a head-to-toe anatomical approach to abscess diagnosis and treatment, including characteristics of abscesses by anatomical region and urgent versus emergent presentations.
You’ll receive six online video modules, patient and cadaver procedural demonstrations, six real-world case studies, audio-only versions of every module, a printable slide deck, a searchable transcript, bonus procedural videos, 60+ supplemental resources, and a free Incision & Drainage Practice Kit.
The course offers 5 CME credits and is fully self-paced.
Yes. Special pricing is available for urgent care and emergency medicine groups.
Know what you’re seeing. Know what to do next.
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