Founding

In 1938, the United States Congress appropriated funds for the acquisition of land for the construction of a new naval medical center, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected the present site in Bethesda, Maryland and exterior design for it, on July 5, 1938. Ground was broken by John McShain Builders for the Naval Medical Center on June 29, 1939, by Rear Admiral Percival S. Rossiter, and President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Tower on Armistice Day, November 11, 1940.

The original Medical Center included the Naval Hospital, designed to hold 1,200 beds, and the Naval Medical School, the Naval Dental School, now the National Naval Dental Center and the Naval Medical Research Institute. In 1945, at the end of World War II, temporary buildings were added to accommodate up to 2,464 wounded American sailors and Marines.

On May 22, 1949, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy and first Secretary of Defense James Forrestal died by suicide after jumping from the 16th floor of the hospital tower.^[5]

Kennedy assassination

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in a motorcade in Dallas with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie. The wounded president was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Parkland doctors and local coroner insisted that they perform the autopsy, since he had been murdered in Dallas County. However, the Secret Service demanded that the assassinated president's body be taken to Washington, D.C. immediately aboard Air Force One. Kennedy's autopsy was performed at the Naval Medical Center.

Presidential and first family visits

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan wave from a Walter Reed hospital window after his cancer surgery in 1985

Since its opening, Walter Reed National Medical Center has been the site for medical evaluations and treatments for U.S. presidents. The medical center includes a presidential office suite that is controlled by the White House, not the U.S. Department of Defense,^[6] and it includes a sitting room, kitchen, conference room, hospital bedroom, and an office for the White House Chief of Staff.^[6][7][8] Presidents and vice presidents are routinely treated at the Medical Evaluation and Treatment Unit or METU Suite, which is a secured and autonomous ward within the complex.^[9]

Franklin D. Roosevelt selected the site of the hospital, laid the cornerstone, and made formal dedication remarks at the hospital's opening on November 11, 1940. When NNMC was dedicated in 1942, its original intention was to provide medical care exclusively to military personnel. The medical center, however, immediately offered to assist in the treatment of Roosevelt's paralysis of his lower extremities. An official White House physician was appointed by the President to tend to ongoing medical care of U.S. presidents. Since Roosevelt, most presidents have used a military hospital close to Washington, D.C., either Bethesda or Walter Reed AMC, as the primary facility for their medical care and that of their immediate family.

On July 13, 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon at the medical center. He sent a letter transferring power to then-U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush invoking the Acting President clause of the 25th Amendment during his procedure.^[10] On January 5, 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for prostate cancer at the medical center.

On October 17, 1987, First Lady Nancy Reagan underwent a mastectomy to treat breast cancer at the medical center.

On May 14, 2018, First Lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization, a minimally invasive procedure that deliberately blocks a blood vessel in order to treat a benign kidney condition. The procedure was reported successful and without complications.

On October 2, 2020, President Donald Trump was admitted after contracting COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[11] Trump was discharged from the hospital on October 5, 2020, following three days of inpatient care.^[12]

On July 29, 2021, First Lady Jill Biden underwent a procedure on her foot following an injury at the beach in Hawaii.

Modernization

In August 1960, a $5.6 million expansion project was initiated and consisted of two five-story wings attached to the main building's east side. Completed in the summer of 1963, Buildings 7 and 8 provided space for 258 beds and replaced the World War II-era ward buildings.

In January 1973, the mission of the Naval Medical Center was modified to include the provision: "to provide coordinated dispensary health care services as an integral element of the Naval Regional Health Care System, including shore activities, as may be assigned." This change established the National Naval Medical Center Region and placed all U.S. Navy health care facilities under the authority of the medical center's commanding officer.

New inpatient buildings and the Naval Medical Center were consolidated on September 1, 1973, forming the National Naval Medical Center. In 1975, an extensive renovation began, which included the construction of two new buildings: Building 9, a three-story outpatient structure, and Building 10, a seven-story, 500 bed inpatient facility, with a combined area of more than 880,000 square feet (82,000 m²).

In 1979, the remaining temporary buildings were replaced with a multi-level staff-parking garage. This addition made National Naval Medical Center one of the largest medical facilities in the nation. The original Naval Medical Center tower was since listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Facility merger

In accordance with the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure recommendations, the Office of Integration (OI) was formed in November 2005 to oversee the merger of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC). That merged facility was to be staffed by Army, Navy, and Air Force medical personnel and become the core of an integrated military medicine system in the National Capital Region (NCR). That in 2005 were three medical centers, a small community hospital, and 19 clinics offering medical care to military beneficiaries in the NCR was to become, with oversight of the OI, a single tri-service medical center, a large tri-service hospital in Northern Virginia, and 20 area clinics.

Construction and cost overruns

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center looking east

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center looking southwest

Groundbreaking took place on July 3, 2008, with President George W. Bush officiating. The goal of the merger was for the government to ultimately spend less money maintaining a new building than an old one. It was estimated that the new facility would cost about $172 million less to manage each year. The original 2005 estimate of the cost of shutting down WRAMC, and shifting it across town to Bethesda, and other locations, was "just under $900 million", according to Brian Lepore of the Government Accountability Office. The point after which the full amount of the investment would have been recouped and at which point savings would actually have commenced was projected to be 2011. But the relocation cost unexpectedly rose by 245% between the original 2005 projection and the 2011 opening. Instead of under $900 million, it turned out to cost $2.7 billion, roughly triple its initial cost projections. As a result, the payback period was expected to begin about seven years later, around 2018. One reason costs skyrocketed was that construction costs escalated, partly due to a huge amount of building materials being sent to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said, "when they made their initial estimates of what it would cost...they did their best estimate...A lot of things have changed since then. Construction costs have gone up." The GAO agreed that the project tripled in price, which was attributed mostly to increased construction costs.^[13]

On September 14, 2011, NNMC was rechristened Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, combining the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center with the National Naval Medical Center.

Current operations

WRNMMC serves as the location of the headquarters for the National Capital Region Medical Directorate, a tri-service task force providing command and control for most medical treatment facilities in the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey. The WRNMMC continues to provide all the services it provided as NNMC and WRAMC.

Pediatrics

WRNMMC has multiple pediatric departments that generally treat infants, children, teens, and young adults up to age 23^[14][15] with some pediatric clinics treating up until age 26.^[16]