Medical Missions for Children is an independent, non-profit organization that works to improve health outcomes of the world's critically ill children by providing individual telemedicine consultations and implementing education programs focused on narrowing the knowledge gap between healthcare providers in the developed word and in the developing world. MMC focuses on “transferring medical knowledge from those who have it to those who need it” using a state-of-the-art communications infrastructure in order to touch the lives of more than one million critically ill children each year.
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Medical Missions for Children was founded in 1997 by Frank and Peg Brady. Its Global Telemedicine and Teaching Network currently serves over 100 countries throughout Latin America/Caribbean, Africa, North America, Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe/Central Asia and the Middle East. MMC is located in Paterson, New Jersey at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center.
The Global Telemedicine and Teaching Network (GTTN) comprises several programs:
This Medical Missions for Children/Patterson, NJ (MMC) should not be confused with Medical Missions for Children (MMFC), a 501 (3)(c) charity based in Woburn, MA that sends 13-15 surgical, medical and dental missions around the world each year to care for impoverished children who suffer from cleft deformities, microtia (absence of ear), head and neck abnormalities and severe, untreated burn injuries
MMC currently produces four television programs broadcast on the New Jersey Network, New Jersey's affiliate of PBS.
Located at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, Giggles Children’s Theater (Giggles) draws its curtains three times each week to bring the healing powers of laughter and entertainment to hospitalized children in the city of Paterson, NJ. Each performance is broadcast live into the Hospital’s closed-circuit TV system so that no child is excluded due to sickness or incapacity. Each performance is also recorded and aired on the Medical Broadcasting Channel so that it can be shared with the over 100 children’s hospitals around the world who benefit from the charitable works of MMC.
In April 2007 a second Giggles theater opened at The Children's Inn located at the campus of the National Institutes of Health.