Medical Missions for Children

Medical Missions for Children (MMFC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a dedicated group of approximately 375 volunteer surgeons, anesthesiologists, medical, dental, speech and nutritional specialists. Our volunteer team members use their personal vacation time to travel to some of the most remote and underprivileged geographical locations around the world to help heal children and young adults. The focus of our missions is the surgical repair of cleft lip and palate deformities, burn injuries, microtia (absence of the outer ear) and head/neck tumors. Dental specialists, nutritionists and speech pathologists also participate in our surgical missions further increasing our range of services provided to the local population of the countries which we serve. Our volunteers hail from the most well respected hospitals and teaching institutions in the United States and abroad.MMFC provides its surgeries free of charge to these children, who would otherwise never have access to this care. These surgeries resolve health complications and speech impediments and most importantly, restores dignity to a child and his family. Children who receive this surgery are given the opportunity to stay in school and become productive members of the community. In addition to restoring children to wholeness, MMFC also utilizes its missions as an opportunity to both train and empower local physicians/nurses, as well as provide training to US-based physician residents who are part of our mission teams. This process enhances our ability to create a model of self-sufficiency in-country. It also affords us the opportunity to train the next generation of surgeons while simultaneously introducing them to the world of community medical service.MMFC’s goal is a sustainable, repeatable approach to a very solvable problem: cleft lip and palate repair. Our sustainable model addresses this issue with innovative solutions. In addition to helping children through surgery we are also transferring knowledge and skills to the areas we serve by providing training to local doctors in developing countries to provide cleft repair surgery in their communities. These trips provide care to underserved populations in underserved countries. And although each child’s life story may be unique, the underlying struggle remains the same in every corner of the globe: the children we care for live in a world where the only thing in more desperate supply than medical care is any hope for a life of wholeness and health. It is through the generosity of our donors and volunteers that we can continue to bring smiles to the faces of young children around the world.