Anonymous
09/24/2022 00:44
Subject: Re:Which emergency room/ urgent care do you use?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’ve had mixed outcomes at Children’s. I’ve waited there for hours and I’ve also been seen quickly. The time I waited for hours I ended up going to PM Pediatrics in Columbia Heights. DS was 5mo and got his arm stuck in between the crib bars and rolled over. He was screaming in pain and wouldn’t settle. We thought he might’ve dislocated his shoulder. Went to Children’s at 8:30am because PM wasn’t open, sat unseen until 11am, left, walked into PM and was seen immediately.
We have been to PM about 5 times now and they are great. They can do everything but an MRI on site. Most recently DS was having breathing problems, they were able to give a first dose of an oral steroid and a nebulizer treatment. He was doing much better by the time we left.
Unless it was something clearly needing hospital-level care I would opt for PM.
FWIW my pediatrician, CNPA, recommended PM of Children’s to us when the arm injury happened.
How terrifying for the baby. Thank you for sharing. We go to CNPA and they said PM was good for when our son is older, but otherwise go to Children's. He's almost a year now so maybe we'd be ok heading to PM. I was a bit worried about parking given that Columbia Heights can get hectic in the evening.
PP here. DS is 18mo now, but other than the shoulder all of our trips have been between 11 and 18mo, the neb treatment was just a few weeks ago. They’ve been wonderful each time.
Anonymous
09/21/2022 21:42
Subject: Re:Which emergency room/ urgent care do you use?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:So sounds like Sibley does take infants/ children?
I didn't think of Georgetown. That's an easier drive for us than Children's.
We went to Children's when LO was just born for bloodwork and I was frightened by the line at the ER. But sounds like it's not necessarily a place to avoided in all cases.
They triage the line. It’s not like you’d bleed out standing there behind someone with a broken finger.
Just PSA, they of course "triage" in the sense that they are willing to take truly emergency patients to the front of the line, but you have to self-advocate. Don't just blindly stand in line with a child who can't breathe expecting someone to come by anytime soon to evaluate you. My most recent time there, waiting in line for hours with a kid who needed stitches, the only line-jumper I witnessed get "triaged" happened because his parents sprinted in with the poor kid slung over their shoulder seizing. They knew what to do and ignored the line and ran straight into the waiting room screaming.