Children's National - Shepherd Park

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone, has anyone taken their baby to the new Children's National pediatric practice in Shepherd Park (Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus)? I understand it's a newer facility and was wondering about experiences with the doctors and staff.

Also, in case of an emergency, is this a dependable place to go, or would you recommend heading elsewhere?

I live nearby but am also considering practices in Chevy Chase and Spring Valley. Would love any insight—thanks!

[Anonymous]

Haven’t been here but I just visited the Lanham campus for a consult and was very impressed. Clean, courteous, relatively timely for a specialist visit, and of course extremely kid-friendly.

[Anonymous]

We go here. Overall we really like it, and we chose it because we live very close.

Pros:

- The doctors are great and thorough - we found one in particular that we really love.

- if you end up needing to see specialists at the main hospital it makes coordination so much easier. Not just with keeping his pediatrician informed, but sharing records is a huge help (we needed multiple specialists at one point) and if we were having trouble getting something scheduled, his main pediatrician would put in a call and we could get in much more quickly.

- The portal is very efficient for communication.

Cons:

- Our appointments there always take a long time. Even after getting back to a room we are often waiting a while to see the doctor.

- It can be pretty hard to get sick appointments at the location you want (sometimes even ones within the next few days). When our son was born they had no newborn intake appointments at the SP location in the time frame we needed to be seen and we had to go to Columbia Heights.

- Reaching their office’s front desk directly via phone is near impossible.

[Anonymous]

We go here because my son has a specialist at Childrens and going to SP for primary care just works best to keep everything all in one place.

BUT.

Agree with the long wait times. And you rarely can guarantee that you see the same doctor. Their schedules open up with no clear regularity so you basically have to keep calling and calling and hope that you happen to call in the window where schedules have opened up, but all the appts are not taken. It's very frustrating.

For a newborn, I would look elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks to both PP. That's both good/bad to hear.

Guess we'll be driving to Spring Valley or Chevy Chase for awhile.

I imagine it's hard to switch pediatricians as well after you've been going to one for awhile.

Frustrating as I thought this might be a very convenient location for us and being connected to Children's Hospital makes 100% sense.

If it's difficult to make appointments and speak to someone that's sort of a deal breaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks to both PP. That's both good/bad to hear.

Guess we'll be driving to Spring Valley or Chevy Chase for awhile.

I imagine it's hard to switch pediatricians as well after you've been going to one for awhile.

Frustrating as I thought this might be a very convenient location for us and being connected to Children's Hospital makes 100% sense.

If it's difficult to make appointments and speak to someone that's sort of a deal breaker.

It's not hard to switch pediatricians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We go here because my son has a specialist at Childrens and going to SP for primary care just works best to keep everything all in one place.

BUT.

Agree with the long wait times. And you rarely can guarantee that you see the same doctor. Their schedules open up with no clear regularity so you basically have to keep calling and calling and hope that you happen to call in the window where schedules have opened up, but all the appts are not taken. It's very frustrating.

For a newborn, I would look elsewhere.

Honestly, we generally end up at urgent care for sick visits because it can be hard to get those appts. Luckily PM Pediatrics is great, but we should be able to see a consistent dr for sick visits and that's just not the case at Childrens.