We hope this page provides information that helps make your visit to the NIH Clinical Center as smooth as possible. Visit Welcome to Our Patients and Their Visitors for additional useful information.
The NIH Clinical Center is pleased to offer The C.A.R.E. Channel on channel 8 on all televisions in the hospital and outpatient clinics.
The C.A.R.E. (an acronym for continuous ambient relaxation environment) Channel features beautiful nature scenes accompanied by instrumental music and provides a restful alternative to commercial television for patients and their caregivers. The programming runs 84 hours before repeating itself, fitting for extended inpatient stays common to the Clinical Center.
Questions about the Clinical Center’s broadcasting of the C.A.R.E. Channel? Email John Pollack at john.pollack@nih.gov.
The mission of the Clinical Center's Fine Art Program is to pair art with medicine to promote healing in an aesthetically pleasing environment for patients, visitors, and employees.
Clinical Center News is published by the Office of Communications and Media Relations. The newsletter highlights the medical research taking place in the hospital, patient stories, staff's dedication, current events and academic lectures in Building 10.
This newsletter provides engaging content and dynamic photographs to enable employees, patients, visitors and other guests to stay up to date on activities and scientific advances happening in the NIH Clinical Center.
The newsletter began in June 1971 as the Clinical Center Closeup. In December 1987, the publication transitioned to the current title, Clinical Center News.
Clinical Center News is available online. While in Building 10, you can also pick up a print copy of the newsletter at five kiosks throughout the hospital. Locate the kiosks by downloading the free hospital way finding app, NIHCC Take Me There, and navigate to the South lobby, Masur Auditorium, Cafeteria Floor B1, Staff Cafeteria or Main Lobby.
The FAES (Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences) Gift shop is located off of the atrium on the first floor of the Clinical Center, and it is open Monday through Friday 9 am - 5 pm. The FAES Bookstore is located near the south side of the Clinical Center near Patient Photography and is open Monday through Friday 9 am - 5 pm.
On most units, there are telephones in each room for local calls. When your family and friends call you, they may reach you by dialing 301-402 and your extension number. If you are moved to another room, your telephone extension number will change. If callers do not know the number, they may call 301-496-4000 and the operator will locate you. As a courtesy to other patients, please ask family and friends to call before 10 p.m. There are also pay telephones located throughout the hospital.
Local Calls
To call a number within the hospital, press 9 plus the 10 digits of the number. To call local outside numbers: press 9-202 for Washington, D.C.; press 9-301 for Maryland; press 9-703 for Virginia.
Long-Distance Calls
For long-distance calls, you may use your patient extension to call collect or to bill charges to a credit card. It is not possible to charge calls to your room extension or accept incoming collect calls.
On each patient care unit, a telephone is provided for long-distance calls at no expense to you. Calls may be placed from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and from 6 p.m. to midnight. We urge you to limit your calls to 10 minutes in consideration of your fellow patients who may also need access to the telephone. If you cannot get to this telephone, ask your social worker to authorize a long-distance call from your room telephone.
Washers and dryers are available for your use. Please ask a staff member on your patient care unit for assistance.
Mail is usually delivered to your unit twice a day Monday through Friday. Special delivery and registered mail will be distributed as soon as it arrives. You may mail stamped letters from your unit. Envelopes and stamps are available at the self-service post office near the bank on the B1 level. If you need help, ask the unit staff or a hospital volunteer.
Provide this address to your friends and relatives:
Patient Name
NIH Clinical Center
Patient Care Unit , room number ___
10 Center Drive, MSC 1000
Bethesda, MD 20892
To make sure your mail reaches you quickly, relatives and friends should write "patient mail" on the envelope and include your unit and room number. For mailing packages, patients and senders can use tracking services offered by the U.S. Postal Service or by other carriers such as Federal Express. These services need not be expensive.
The NIH Patient Library, located on the north end of the CRC 7th Floor Atrium right next to the Chapel, is your home library away from home.
The library is open most Federal Holidays from 11 am to 4 pm. We are closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day.
To help make their experience comfortable, inpatient clinical trial participants stay at the NIH Clinical center, which featured amenities such as book delivery service, live streaming of chapel services and personalized menu options for in-room food service. Patients benefit from NIH's unique bench-to-bedside approach as clinicians and researchers work together to turn clinical research findings into possible treatments and therapies.
Guest wireless service is available for patients and their guests at the NIH Clinical Center, Family Lodge and The Children's Inn. This service provides access to the Internet and social media only. Please note that the network is not secure or encrypted, and it does not allow access to any NIH internal systems, services, or resources.
To access the guest wireless service, simply follow these steps:
- Select the NIH-Guest-Network in "available wireless networks" from a laptop or mobile device, then click the "connect" button.
- Once you launch a web browser (such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari), you will be redirected to a page displaying the network Terms and Conditions.
- After reading the Terms and Conditions, click "Accept" and you will have immediate access to the Internet.
If you have problems accessing the guest wireless service, visit a Hospitality desk centrally located on the first floor of the Clinical Center, the NIH Patient Library located on the north end of the 7th floor atrium, or contact Wireless Device Assistance at 301-451-4380. Staff of the Safra Family Lodge will also be readily available to provide assistance.