Visitor Policies at Monroe Carell

Masks are optional for most patients, visitors and employees in our hospitals and clinics. We ask that you respect others’ choices about masking. Some patients, including those with symptoms of respiratory infection, will be asked to wear a mask. 

Avoid visiting or accompanying a patient if you have symptoms of illness. Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer when you enter or leave a patient room.

These requirements may change from time to time and may differ among our seven hospitals and hundreds of clinic locations. Please review specifics below and discuss other details with hospital or clinic staff.

Routine visiting hours are 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

We don’t consider parents or guardians visitors. They are an essential part of the health care team and key to a child’s health. We encourage parents and guardians to stay with their children 24 hours a day.

When your child is admitted, 2 parent-approved visitors aged 18 or older may stay with your child 24/7. Up to 4 people may be in the patient's room during visiting hours. This may be different people each day.

• Visitors must wash their hands or use hand sanitizer when they enter or leave the patient room.
• Visitors who stay overnight should arrive before 8 p.m.
• If you have a fever, rash, diarrhea, vomiting, cold or any recent exposure to a disease you could pass to a patient, you may not visit patient care floors.
• We permit only non-latex balloons at Monroe Carell. Latex or rubber balloons may pose a choking hazard. Many of our patients also have latex allergies.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center campuses are smoke-free. Smoking, vaping and the use of smokeless tobacco products are not allowed.

Child visitors age 5 and under

• Children aged 5 and under visiting patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU); on floors 6A, 6B, 10A, 10C; or following a solid organ transplant must have a health screening each day they visit. This screening should be completed by a member of the unit’s clinical team before the child may visit.
• Upon admission, parents/caregivers will receive a parent information handout so they are aware of guidelines for screening for children aged 5 and under for designated units/patients.
• After a negative screening, child visitors will be given an “apple sticker” so staff and faculty know they have been screened.
• The maximum number of people at the bedside for each patient will remain at 4, regardless of ages.

When your child is admitted to the emergency department, 4 visitors aged 16 and older are allowed. Each visitor will wear a sticker to identify themselves.

• Visitors for patients with a COVID-positive diagnosis should be instructed to visit only in the patient room.  They should not spend time in other locations in the facility.
• Visitors must always wear a mask when staff and providers are in the room. Failure to do so will result in ending visitation privileges.
• Visitors must wash their hands or use hand sanitizer regularly.
• A parent/guardian with each patient with a COVID-positive diagnosis receives one free meal tray per meal period each day.

In the case of twins, 4 people may be with each patient in the NICU.

4 parents/caregivers (16 years and older) are welcome to accompany your child to the surgery waiting room on the day of surgery. Two parents/caregivers may be in the holding room before and in the recovery room after surgery.

All parents/caregivers must:

• Be free of any symptoms of COVID or flu
• Wash their hands or use hand sanitizer when entering or leaving the room

If your child is admitted to the hospital, 4 parents/caregivers may be at bedside during visiting hours.

Two caregivers may stay overnight.

Vanderbilt Children's Surgery and Clinics Murfreesboro

We request that no siblings accompany your child on the day of surgery. 

2 visitors can be with the child in these settings.