Three rooms. Pick the one you can drive to.

Missouri Injury Clinic runs three rooms across the St. Louis metro, and they all hold the same opening entry: a history, an exam, findings, and a written treatment plan, in any of the three published lanes. The room you pick does not change the exam. It changes whether you actually show up this week, which is the only variable this desk cares about. So the rule is simple: pick the room you can drive to this week, and call it first.

The 12 to 2 closure, every day

All three rooms close from noon to 2 p.m. daily for meetings. That is published, it is consistent, and it catches people who show up on a lunch break. Plan for a morning slot or an afternoon slot. If you train early, the 9 a.m. opening is yours; if you train late, the 2 to 6 window is. Friday is a half day at Hazelwood and Tesson Ferry, 9 to 12, and O'Fallon runs Wednesday and Friday by appointment only, so a Friday plan starts with a phone call the day before.

Which room, by where you are

O'Fallon, on West Terra Lane, is the room for St. Charles County and everyone west: O'Fallon itself, Lake St. Louis, St. Peters, Wentzville, St. Charles, and the west county athletes who would rather go over the bridge than across it. It is the room this desk names first because most of our readers are out there. It runs Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 9 to 6, with Wednesday and Friday by appointment.

Hazelwood, in the Village Square shopping center, is north county: Hazelwood, Florissant, Ferguson, Bridgeton, and the schools along the I-270 north arc. Monday through Thursday 9 to 6, Friday 9 to 12.

Tesson Ferry, Suite 200 on Tesson Ferry Road, is south county: Affton, Oakville, Mehlville, Concord, and the athletes along I-55 and I-270 south. Same hours as Hazelwood.

If you are in the city or central county, pick whichever of the three you can reach in the window you have. The exam is the same exam.

Before you drive

• Call. Confirm the hours on the call, because hours change and this desk republishes what the clinic publishes, not what happened this morning.
• Say the lane: sports injury, auto injury, or both. Say the date. Say one sentence on what happened and where it hurts today. Say head if the head was involved.
• Bring the date and mechanism written down, anything that already exists on paper, and your training calendar. Entry one has the full list.
• If you cannot drive because of the neck or the head, that is a finding. Say it on the call and get a ride.

What the rooms do not change

The lanes are the same at all three: sports injuries, auto injuries, and TBI and concussion rehab, as the clinic publishes them. Joseph L. Hollingsworth, DC, runs the clinic. The opening entry is the same. This desk does not publish which clinician is in which room on which day, how a visit is billed, or what the clinic accepts, because those are the clinic's to answer and they answer them on the phone.

The emergency line does not have a room

Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic. None of the three rooms is an emergency room, and a clinic that sends you to one instead of booking you is doing its job.