Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Medical Clearance Snooping

Hello Everyone!

I spent half of yesterday reading over a bunch of people's blogs and realized that I am probably below average when it comes to bugging either the pre-service nurse or the pre-service office as to the status of my application. Taking that into mind, I shot off an email! I basically asked if there was any new information on when I would be leaving and/ or cleared, if I was still good to go on the original timeline of my nomination, and if I was going to be informed if there was any sort of hold up on my group due to budget cuts and whatnot.

I received an email back saying that my nomination group was slated to have the medical clearance processed by the end of June and that I should be hearing back from the office within the next four weeks. The person then directed all of my other questions to the placement office (whom I will be emailing in a second.) This part about my group being process at the end of June reminded me of an earlier email I had received from the placement office that I got in reply to a message I had sent about needing extra time to fill out additional paperwork for some failed medical tests.

The email had off handedly mentioned that, at the time, the group being processed was for people leaving between April and June; the email was sent in March. Taking this into account, I should still be good in my thinking that I will be leaving in August or September (though I am now thinking that a September date is probably more likely) since it seems that processing for placement and medical occurs about 1-3months prior to departure.

I thought this would be especially helpful to post for those of you out there that sent in your medical paperwork early and are wanting to kill the nice Peace Corps nurses for not clearing you sooner since you have been waiting for months on end. I have also heard from multiple people that the offices are under staffed and that is why everything takes so long, but I am starting to think that, that is probably the response they give you when they don't want you to bug them any more. Eh, what do I know?

So thats about it for new information for the day, I will let you know once I get an email back from placement assuming it has any new information. Also, please, please, please feel free to comment or answer the question to the upper right of the screen. The more connected I feel with other nominees/ invitees/ volunteers/ RPCVs the happier I am, and it doesn't matter if we haven't met, or if we will never meet, I would love to hear from you!

Hope all is well,
Claire   

3 comments:

  1. Just wanted to pop in and say hi to another ginger Claire going into PC. :) Well, I'm not a real ginger, my hair is auburn, but I've always identified as a redhead (it's not blonde, it's not brown, it's reddish, so.......). Anyway, good luck with things, I'll be keeping an eye out to see where you end up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, glad you popped in! Us redheads have to stick together when going around the world and helping people out. :) Hope your interview went well! Post something when you know where you are going, and I hope everything continues smoothly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, I'm an applicant and found your blog on PC Wiki. Sounds like we are on similar timelines. I've been nominated as a business volunteer in Sub Saharan Africa for a September departure, and the waiting is killing me! I was finally medically cleared on May 19th after a 4 month odyssey that involved appealing a medical deferral. Last week I emailed the placement office with an updated resume and additional volunteer experience, and they told me they'd be looking at my file "in the coming weeks". I'm so worried that my nomination will be subject to those lovely budget cuts, which is why it's so hard to sit around and wait for potentially bad news! I wish they could just tell us now if the program we've been nominated for is full/cancelled due to budget constraints. Anyway, good luck with the process!

    ReplyDelete