Johns Hopkins brings experienced care for common kidney problems to the community, easing travel burdens and long appointment waits for patients and families.

The Division of Pediatric Nephrology at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center is recognized as one of the most prominent programs nationally in treating complex kidney diseases in children. But, fortunately, not all pediatric kidney problems are complex nor require travel to a busy urban tertiary care hospital for evaluation and treatment. To ease that travel burden for patients while still providing Hopkins’ first-class kidney care for children—and to facilitate more convenient scheduling of appointments for families—Hopkins pediatric nephrologists on Jan. 1, 2016, will be opening a twice-monthly outreach clinic on the campus of a local suburban hospital in central Maryland, the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC).

“We’re opening up the outreach clinic at GBMC so we can see children with common pediatric nephrology problems like hematuria, kidney stones, and urinary tract infections,” says Alicia Neu, director of the Division of Pediatric Nephrology at Hopkins. “Unlike chronic kidney disease, these less complicated issues do not require multidisciplinary care and services like dialysis, dieticians and social work.”

Along with Neu, pediatric nephrologists Meredith Atkinson and Cozumel Pruette will rotate through the half-day clinic held every other Tuesday at the Physician’s Pavilion East building on the GBMC campus. Due to a shortage of pediatric nephrologists in the community, Johns Hopkins is also exploring development of pediatric nephrology outreach clinics in other suburban locations in the state.

“Rather than have patients travel to downtown Baltimore, we want to be able to bring our services to the community and then evaluate and manage patients with their pediatricians,” says Neu.

For more information and/or to schedule an appointment, call the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Call Center at 443-997-5437 (KIDS.) The address for Johns Hopkins Pediatric Nephrology at GBMC is Physician’s Pavilion East, 6565 N. Charles Street, Towson, MD 21204.

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