Vanderbilt Children's After-Hours Clinic Brentwood

My family had an amazing experience with the staff at this clinic. We arrived late evening with an injury requiring stitches and were seen promptly and respectfully. Each staff member was very nice, professional, and took the extra time to help my child. I really appreciated the level of care.

Friendly staff, clean office, and they try their best to get you in and out quickly.

Glimpse of visit/some expectations to find out about:
This children's clinic acts as a walk-in/urgent care for kids under 18 years old. First come first serve. IF there is a child that needs to have a surgery/procedure within the next 3 days, then they get pulled back at any point to get a COVID for their procedure. Another thing to remember is if there is a child that has trouble breathing or a serious allergic reaction where their need to breathe is in danger, that child will be pulled back and seen sooner.

In any other case that is NOT life-threatening, you sign up on an iPad and then the front desk personnel checks you in with details such as name, date of birth, insurance etc. There is no "time frame or how long will it be until we see the doctor" to ask for, because some families check in more than one child to be seen. Therefore, it takes longer for the team to get vitals, weight, intake history, provider's history, and provider's exam (not including any tests or treatments done during the visit) - SO, your wait may be for a long time. It is what it is. You can ask how many families or kids are ahead of your kid(s) in line to get an idea, but there is no true way to give a set number of minutes to when you will be seen. Another thing to know is even though there may not be any patients in the waiting room besides your child, the rooms that patients are taken to in the back may have already been filled before you and child arrived to clinic. So, even if you arrive to an empty waiting room, there may be 3-4 families already in rooms waiting for the doctor ahead of your kid.

Often times, I find it helpful to just bring one kid (just one to focus on since the rooms are so small) and find someone to take care of the others at home.

Once you are called back by a care partner and/or nurse, your kid will get his weight and vital signs checked plus be asked about any medical history and allergies. From what I'm told, parents knowing your pharmacy's address and closing time (plus a backup pharmacy YOU want in mind) ahead of time also is a time-saver for the staff. Once that is done, then you and your child wait their turn in line to see the provider. There is usually only one doctor in the clinic. If your wait is pretty long, that may be a good sign that the provider you are waiting on likes to be thorough in examining and treating your child. Or, there may be a child that needs longer monitoring due to all kinds of tests and treatments done in-clinic.

I've found signing up for My Health at Vanderbilt being so useful, especially since I can look on the app for any test results first hand before anyone calls to discuss any positive test results. I've been told the staff only calls for positives, so having the My Health at Vanderbilt app is super helpful for test results and to see the doctors notes afterwards. So far, all of the doctors we have seen are super kind and sweet and seem to be really good at explaining what's going on. Which is really reassuring for a parent!

Nurse Kandy is everything a nurse should be !!!!

Dr Jill was nice too

And so was Virginia

So glad I came yesterday

Poor baby had been sick on and off for a few days
And we got right to the problem
24 hours later fever gone !

My daughter woke up with a fever and cough on Sunday morning so we went online and got an appointment for early afternoon. We were seen right away during our appointment time and it was another 20 to 30 minutes before we saw a doctor which we expected given that this is an urgent care clinic. We brought some books which helped pass the time. The doctor was very kind and apologized for the wait, and after a few more checks, she cleared my daughter to go home. Sick kids is never fun but this was a good experience overall.