Jennifer F. Pagador, MD

Dr. Jennifer Pagador is well known for her charity and volunteerism. She’s been an active volunteer for Physicians for Peace, having gone on missions to her native Philippines with the group in 2012 and 2013. She still finds it difficult to explain how profound going on these missions can be: “As much as we all complain about the medical care in this country, when we go into these missions fields, we see people who have little or no access to any medical care. Most of them have no quality of life, and some of them die. Being able to help them is what has always kept me going.”
In 2013, Dr. Pagador joined forces with another physician from her homeland, Dr. Juan Montero, a well-respected local (now retired) thoracic surgeon with his own long established reputation as an advocate for the poor. Dr. Montero, who founded the Chesapeake Free Care Clinic, was also a volunteer with Physicians for Peace.
In 2012, Dr. Montero established Montero Medical Missions, a non-profit interfaith international humanitarian organization dedicated to the promotion of world friendship through the healing arts. When he invited Dr. Pagador to join him, she didn’t hesitate. “Dr. Montero created Montero Medical Missions to provide ophthalmologic, prosthetic and dental care projects for physicians and allied health professionals with international roots, which allows those of us who participate to share our blessings by caring for the people of our native countries,” she says.
She even asked Dr. Montero if she could host a mission to the Philippines herself, which meant undertaking a year’s worth of intensive work herself, before the mission could even begin – all while maintaining her own medical practice. Obtaining the proper medical permits from the host country can take months. Fundraising is part of planning as well, but there, Dr. Pagador had help. “We held garage sales and bake sales at church,” she says, “and my son was involved as well. We are so amazed at the generosity of the people.” There were untold logistics to deal with. Taking Americans into foreign countries, into sometimes dangerous areas, involves a great deal of advance planning, she learned, especially in terms of security. And advance planning is especially critical, because “When you get to the host country, you always encounter other issues.”
Closer to home, Dr. Pagador assists Montero Medical Missions in its Health Fair for Veterans, a medical screening program focused on serving military veterans in need, many of whom are homeless. There are more than 70 volunteers at each of these screenings, and each veteran is given a personal escort to assist them through the screening project. “The fair also provides free transportation for those who can’t get to the facility,” she says. Happily, she adds, the project is expanding, branching out to other areas in Virginia where the need is great for these vets.
Inspired by her strong Christian faith and a desire to return some of her blessings, Dr. Pagador was also inspired by her parents. Growing up in the Philippines, she was accustomed to her parents’ humanitarianism. Her father was a lawyer, whose clients often tried to pay him with their children’s labor. Instead, she remembers, “he’d send these kids to school. He even started a pre-K school for these children, which we didn’t learn about until his death.” And she recalls seeing her mother, a nurse, bringing children to their home so she could vaccinate them against cholera in the wake of a typhoon. “That’s what I saw every day,” Dr. Pagador says. “I thought that was just how people acted.” 