Dr Midlife, can you please go a little more into this for me. I know it probably looks awesome on your app but it seems like a pretty drastic step that a lot of us are not in the position to take. You always give good advice here so I'd really liek to hear why you put this as #1 in your reply. Thanks.
Golly, thanks. There are RPCVs (returning Peace Corps volunteers) on these boards who can tell you what it's actually like. My perspective is from wishing I'd done the PC when I was younger, because now I'm 41 and it's really either/or for me, PC vs. med school.
Yes, the Peace Corps is a drastic step and no, not everybody is in a position to do it. If you have kids, debt, family obligations etc. you can't pull up and leave for 27 months. But if you could...
I see two buckets of goodness about doing a PC gig. One is the "what it does to you" bucket and the other is the "what it says about you" bucket.
In the "what it does to you" bucket the PC shares a lot of goodness with other orgs like Unite for Sight, Habitat for Humanity, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, and plenty more that work in and out of the US, including the military. Effectively when you sign up with any of these, you are putting aside your comforts to be of service. You might learn another language really well. You might be in the right place at the right time to be really useful (like Katrina or Banda Ace). These orgs aren't trying to entertain you or impress your parents. What's amazing to me about the PC, among all these orgs, is that it gets you out of the US for multiple years, it puts you to work for people who have less than you probably do, it subjugates you to an organization that isn't perfect but has high humanitarian aims (like any US hospital), it gives you responsibility without requiring you to show up with an MD/RN/MPH, and it doesn't require you to shoot anybody. I see this as unique.
If you're 21, grew up in a suburban mall, can't live without your iPod, and you don't know what people mean when they say you're immature, the Peace Corps would change you, big time. If you're 30, have been around the block a few times, have reason to be cynical about the US corporate working life, and you're not sure anything's worth doing, the PC would take a decent shot at changing you. Personally I wanted to go because I was becoming my own worst nightmare: a highly paid creator of crap that people don't need but they buy anyway. I wanted a hard, sustained jerk out of that life. (I've settled for a soft, slow jerk, I guess.)
OK, so in the "what it says about you" bucket, if you complete a PC gig, that speaks volumes to a future employer or med school admissions committee. It says that you stayed overseas in a country where you don't have all the comforts of home, and maybe there's really bad air pollution, crime, disease, etc. and you didn't come running home. You had a job that wasn't necessarily exciting or even interesting and you did it anyway. You've seen what another part of the world is like and you probably have an adult appreciation of what the US has and doesn't have. You may have been isolated in a village, dependent on your nascent language skills, and survived. You did all this, and you STILL want to be a doctor, as opposed to running for a high-paying job. Compare this to the Halo3 candidate, the wine cellar candidate, the $50,000 wedding candidate, etc. (OK, yeah, you can be a Halo3 wine cellar $50,000 wedding RPCV candidate, sure.)
In summary, if you're trying to get into medical school, some part of you wants to help people, and you're one of 40,000 candidates trying to stand out. Lots of people get into medical school and end up helping people, without doing the Peace Corps. Add a PC gig to the mix, and I think it gives you (a) a better grasp on whether you even want a life of service in the first place; (b) the ultimate EC; and (c) a bona fide humanitarian experience to launch you through med school and your career.
I'll invite Jolie South to comment. She did a PC gig in Cameroon and is applying this year.
Best of luck to you.
