Children's National Hospital is a children's hospital in Washington, D.C. Ranked the top 7 children's hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and located just north of the McMillan Reservoir and Howard University, it shares grounds with Washington Hospital Center, National Rehabilitation Hospital, and the DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center. , has served as the president and chief executive officer of Children’s National since 2011. Children's National is a not-for-profit institution that performs more than 450,000 visits each year. Featuring 323 beds and a Level IV NICU, Children's National is the regional referral center for pediatric emergency, trauma, cancer, cardiac and critical care as well as neonatology, orthopaedic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery. Children's National is ranked among the best pediatric hospitals in the United States by U.S. News & World Report and The Leapfrog Group. Children's National is a teaching hospital of The George Washington University School of Medicine and The Howard University College of Medicine. In 2021 the hospital was ranked as the #7 best children's hospital in the United States by U.S. News and World Report on the publications' honor roll list.The neonatology division was also ranked #1 in the country for the fourth year in a row.
Services and programs
Division of Oncology: The Division of Oncology at Children's National Hospital strives to cure cancer and minimize the side effects of treatment. Children's National has access to Children's Oncology Group's Phase I trials and Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium protocols. Children's National Heart Institute: The Institute is made up of the departments of Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery, Cardiac Intensive Care, and Cardiac Anesthesia. Cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, interventionalists, cardiac intensivists, anesthesiologists, and fetal heart specialists care for a wide range of congenital heart problems. Children's National Division of Neurosurgery: The neurosurgery team tackles complex cases using image-guided surgery, gamma knife, and minimally invasive approaches. The Division of Neurology at Children's National treats a range of pediatric conditions, including autism, brain tumors, epilepsy, headaches, learning disabilities, migraines, movement disorders, neonatal neurology, neurogenetic diseases, neuromuscular diseases, stroke, and white matter diseases. Children's National Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: The Division of Neonatology is ranked number one in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Within this division is one of the only level IV NICUs in the Washington, D.C., area, providing care for premature and ill newborns. Children's National Research Institute: Children's National Research Institute is a top ranked pediatric research institution in terms of overall National Institutes of Health funding. Principal investigators and physicians work side by side. Children's National Infectious Disease Division: The Division of Infectious Disease has renown physicians and fellows providing care to the area with Lyme disease, Zika, and other complicated infectious disease issues in the hospital. The division also contains a separate Transplant Infectious Disease division which cares for critically ill transplant patients including heart, bone marrow, kidney, and gastrointestinal tract. A partnership also exists with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and ID division where internal medicine-pediatric infectious disease fellows rotate and collaborate with research projects.
Traditionally, the First Lady visits the Hospital each December with Santa Claus to read the book "The Night Before Christmas". This has been done by First Ladies dating back to Bess Truman.