Getting dropped at the Texas Medical Center without circling a garage

Call (832) 877-0500 and tell us the institution, the building, and the appointment time. We confirm the entrance before the day rather than working it out at the curb.

The Medical Center runs along Fannin Street and Holcombe Boulevard, and the institutions sit close enough together that a street address alone can still leave you at the wrong building. Texas Children's, Houston Methodist, and Memorial Hermann are neighbours on the Fannin corridor. MD Anderson spreads across several buildings with its own entrance system.

For a patient, that distance is the whole problem. Being dropped at the right door is the difference between walking in and walking across a campus first.

MD Anderson marks its entrances by number, and its own directions page tells you which marker serves which building. Two of them are patient drop-off points, and they are not interchangeable.

Entrance 2 is patient drop-off for the Main Building, and also Parking Garage 10 and self-parking for the Main Building at The Art Gallery and at The Aquarium in the Clark Clinic. Entrance 7 is patient drop-off for the Mays Clinic and the Duncan Building.

The other markers are parking rather than drop-off. Entrance 3 is Parking Garage 2 and the Emergency Center. Entrance 4 is parking in McGovern Commons and self-parking for the Radiation Treatment Center. Entrance 5 is the Mays Clinic and Duncan Building patient and visitor garage, with self-parking for the Mays Clinic at The Tree Sculpture and the Duncan Building at The Star.

So the useful thing to tell your chauffeur is not MD Anderson. It is Main Building or Mays Clinic, which resolves to Entrance 2 or Entrance 7.

MD Anderson states on its directions page that valet operations have closed at all of its Texas Medical Center campus buildings, in support of its visitor policy. Self-parking is Garage 2, Garage 10, and McGovern Commons.

That changes the arithmetic for anyone driving a patient in themselves. Without valet, the driver parks in a garage and walks the patient in, which on a treatment day is the part people underestimate. A chauffeured car goes to the drop-off marker, the patient gets out at the door, and nobody parks at all.

MD Anderson's own driving directions converge on the same last instruction from almost every direction: reach Holcombe Boulevard and follow it to the appropriate entrance marker.

From Sugar Land, Missouri City, and Pearland the approach is generally Texas 288, exiting at N. MacGregor and continuing onto Braeswood to reach Holcombe. From George Bush Intercontinental it is U.S. 59 to Texas 288 south and the same N. MacGregor exit. From Hobby the published route runs Broadway to Interstate 45, then Interstate 610 to the Fannin Street exit and north on Fannin to Holcombe.

We do not publish a fixed drive time to the Medical Center, because the honest answer depends on the hour. Medical Center traffic peaks with shift changes and clinic openings. Tell us the appointment time and we work backwards from it with a buffer.

Treatment and consultation days rarely end when the calendar says they will. Booking the return leg as a fixed time is how people end up waiting outside a building for an hour.

Two ways to handle it. Book the car by the hour, so the chauffeur holds nearby and comes to the entrance when you are actually ready. Or book a one-way in, and call us when you are finishing, and we send the next available car. For a long treatment day the hourly option is usually the calmer one.

The institution, the building or clinic name, the appointment time, the pickup address, and how many are riding. If you are being dropped at MD Anderson, the building name is the part that matters, because that is what decides Entrance 2 or Entrance 7.

Tell us if a wheelchair, walker, or oxygen is travelling with you so we send the right vehicle and allow the time. Tell us if someone is coming with you, since a caregiver is normal on these trips and changes the seat count.