Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the Paul Chester Children's Hope Foundation? back to top

The Foundation provides medical assistance to improve the lives of families in developing countries. Our programs fuel the potential for lasting impact in communities by providing critical health resources. The Foundation harnesses the expertise of medical professionals and volunteers to identify opportunities for maximum social impact in the developing world.

2. What is the Foundation's mandate? back to top

The Paul Chester Children's Hope Foundation mission is to provide medical assistance to families in developing countries, giving them a chance to live productive lives either through well-conceived surgical missions or through medium-term intervention programs. Through these programs, we perform reconstructive surgery (such as club foot; cleft palate; or burn scar treatments) and work to arrest preventable, curable diseases.

3. Who is Bill Chester and what is his background? back to top

Bill Chester is a physician, specializing in anesthesiology, with a private practice in Potomac, Maryland. Dr. Chester also serves as President of the Pan American Medical Society and has spent nearly twenty years participating in volunteer, self-funded medical missions to developing countries.

4. How long have the Foundation's volunteers been involved in these missions? back to top

Bill Chester has nearly two decades of experience working with Operation Smile, Children of the Andes, and the Pan American Medical Society. He started working with these groups in 1986 and participated in or organized missions once or twice each year since then. Dr. Chester has been working with a network of medical professionals that have all been involved in a number of missions with Dr. Chester and other organizations and are experienced in this work.

5. How many people work for the Foundation? back to top

The core base of the Foundation is made up of volunteers - both on the medical side and the organizational side. The organizational side is made up of a group of dedicated individuals who meet regularly to discuss, plan and pilot missions. Our network of medical volunteers coordinates and executes the missions, with team members funding their own participation.

6. How do you pick which missions you will accept? back to top

Missions are organized approximately six to nine months in advance, sometimes as much as a year in advance through carefully selected physician contacts in the host country. Dr. Bill Chester has developed long-standing relationships with like-minded physicians worldwide and works with them directly on planning a mission. When a mission is proposed, its feasibility is carefully assessed from the logistical, medical and safety perspectives. In the past, the embassy of the host country has initiated contact with the Foundation to bring attention to a community in need.

7. How many missions have you done and where? back to top

Bill and his colleagues that are involved in missions have a great deal of experience with them. Bill himself has participated in missions to Kenya, Ghana, Vietnam, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador — a number of which were conducted through Operation Smile. The PAMS and Paul Chester Foundation network of volunteers has operated two missions to Ecuador in 2001 and 2005, and two missions to Kenya in September 2005 and August 2006.

8. How much does a mission cost and how many people go? back to top

The approximate cost of a mission is $1500-3000 per team member for a 10-day surgical mission. Five of the 10 days are spent in the operating room. Travel, patient screening, setup, and clinical follow-up occupy the remainder of the time.

9. How are the medical volunteers selected? back to top

Once a mission is identified, there is close coordination with the local doctors to identify the need for that particular location. Although all missions will have the same core requirements, each one is tailored to the surgical expertise of the volunteer doctors (i.e. pediatric cardiac surgeons, orthopedic surgeons). This is largely dictated by the expertise of the doctors on the ground, as the objective is to pair a local doctor with a volunteer. This serves two purposes; first, the local doctor will have the capacity to do the necessary follow-up; and second, the host doctor receives a potential secondary benefit of knowledge transfer.

Often the local doctors, as a result of the relationships built during the mission, come to the US to further learn about new techniques and procedure that they can then take back to patients in their community. This is a clear indication of the dedication of the volunteer doctors. They often host the visiting doctors - having them live in their homes - for extended periods of time, and arrange the logistics for training with their hospital.

10. What is the Pan American Medical Society and how does that fit into this? back to top

The Pan American Medical Society (PAMS), founded over 60 years ago as a nonprofit, scientific, humanitarian, and educational institution in Washington, DC, has recently begun an active program of overseas medical missions serving the countries of South and Central America.

PAMS had served as a sponsor and incubator organization for PCCHF until the 501 (c)(3) status was granted this November 2006. We will continue to partner with PAMS on all missions in South and Central America.

In 2001, PAMS requested that Bill Chester oversee their conversion to a medical missions oriented group; it has recently run two self-funded trips to Ecuador under Dr. Chester's direction.

11. Who is Paul Chester and how does he fit in with work the Foundation is doing? back to top

Paul was Dr. Chester's son, and in 2003, at the age of 16, he died in a tragic car accident in which he was a passenger. Paul spent time with his father on various missions, helped these missions take place and had a deep desire to help those less fortunate. Paul, he was an avid traveler and a wonderful, compassionate person, even for his age, and socially conscientious beyond the capacity of most children his age. Through his travels he witnessed the work his father was doing and intuitively understood the implications of the treatment, not only on the individuals affected but on their families. Along with Roxolana Kuzmak , Dr. Chester established the Paul Chester Children's Hope Foundation to honor Paul's memory and keep alive the potential good that his son would have done had he lived beyond his youth.

12. How does a mission in Africa align with previous missions in Latin America? back to top

PCCHF is committed to carrying out medical missions worldwide. As many of the communities are afflicted with diseases that are straightforward to treat, we embrace the fact that our efforts, through medium-term involvement (as well as one-off surgeries) can have trememdous impact on individual and communities.

The success of all programs coordinated by PCCHF, regardless of location, relies on close coordination and collaboration with local groups. Dr. Chester has, over the years, come to know Kuki Gallman, author of I Dreamed of Africa, and they have found a great deal of common ground in their efforts to serve underprivileged communities in developing countries. The Foundation, in coordination with Ms Gallman, is currently assessing the feasibility of a medical mission that would bring long-term relief to some of the most debilitating diseases in Kenya. This is a program that would treat River Blindess, a disease common to communities throughout Africa that is both easily transmitted and easily cured. The impact on the treated communities would be enormous. In treating individuals for this disease and curing them, they would be able to contribute much more effectively to their community and ultimately, the treated community as a whole would be relieved - both economically and socially.

13. Have you ever turned any cases away? Why? back to top

Under the Foundation's mission program it is our goal to treat as many people as is feasible on each mission; however, it is inevitable that some cases will be turned away. The reasons for this are - primarily safety (where the risk inherent in the surgery is too great); some cases are too complex to perform without the long-term monitoring following the procedure, and time constraints.

14. How are you different from Operation Smile? back to top

We do similar work in some areas, but we are considerably smaller and therefore more flexible. We have a very strong network of medical professional who often work together prior to the missions. We have more control over our schedule and our fundraising is often more program-specific, or is done on an individual basis.

15. Have you ever had a bad experience with the planning or implementation of a mission? How did you handle it? back to top

Historically speaking, nearly all planned missions have presented significant challenges. With any operation of this nature (one that relies on both logistical coordination and medical capacity), unforeseen problems are inevitable. For instance, after much preparation, a mission to Ecuador was logically "set". The government and Embassy had facilitated all the necessary arrangements; however, during the site inspection during set-up, it emerged that the host hospital often experienced power failures, which in turn shut off the water - essential in surgery. The local solution was to provide basins of standing water for the operating room, but mosquito larvae were spotted in the basins. Consequently, on very short notice the location was changed, with the mission instead based at a military hospital in Q.... This last minute change would not have been possible without the strong relationships, the involvement of the host country government at the highest levels, and the flexibility of the volunteer staff.

In addition, a 2003 mission to Ecuador was nearly derailed by a tremendous snow in Washington. All the medical supplies were in storage at Bill's home, and his 1000 ft driveway was blocked. The supplies had to be sledded from the house to pickup trucks on the road with the help of Bill's son, daughter and other volunteer surgeons' sons. The group then met at the airport, unpacked and then repacked the supplies on the spot. Mechanical failure delayed the group's arrival in Ecuador by 24 hours; at the same time, one-third of the supplies were delayed by an additional three days. In the end, the team improvised, borrowed, and purchased missing supplies, ultimately operating on 110 patients in the subsequent five days.