I agree with the rest here, It'll look good on your resume--meaning better future financial security for you and your family should you use it to land a better position in the medical field.
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In need of advice!
- Thread starter SLC Flyfishing
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If you're just looking to buff up your medical school application credentials, East Timor is overkill. If you're looking to provide an actual service to humanity, the need is greater in Haiti.
If you have reasonable volunteer credentials in your application, I'd skip it and go to medical school.
If you have reasonable volunteer credentials in your application, I'd skip it and go to medical school.
It's only 3 months, not years.I would never leave my children for that long if I could help it. I agree it sounds like a great opportunity, but, what about the wife and children? Is there no way to bring them along? What would you do if your wife wanted to leave for that long?
Maybe greater, but there's never just one place in the world that needs service.
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia/countries/etimor/
For 1.1 million people:
Timor-Leste
Indicator Value (year)
Number of community and traditional health workers 1,657 (2004)
Number of dentistry personnel 45 (2004)
Number of nursing and midwifery personnel 1,795 (2004)
Number of other health service providers 1,665 (2004)
Number of Pharmaceutical personnel 14 (2004)
Number of Physicians 79 (2004)
http://apps.who.int/whosis/database...ss.cfm?country=tls&indicators=healthpersonnel
Go.
I've had an opportunity presented to be that, baring some bureaucracy that is not insurmountable, will see me away from my home and my parter for 12 months. It's the dream job, in the dream location, with options for a long term career and a whole change of life for us both. I'm going for it.
Because, like you would, I promise you.... if I don't take it - you'll spend the rest of your life wondering what it would have been like.
3 months? I've knew people who have had to leave their families for 3 months out of the year for 7 straight years. I've known people who have collectively had to travel 70% of the year who have wives/husbands & children. I think 3 months is nothing. Think about those who are currently on active duty in any branch of the service. This seems like it is a no-brainer to me.
If you're truly going through medical school I would say that you already have little time as it is now. I would say that considering you've been married for 7 years and you have taken on the responsiblity of children, an undergrad degree, later on med school, I believe you also do something by way of photography ... all of that in my eyes means you're home at night but that's about it. I know when I was in school I was home at night to sleep but that was just about it as I had a full time job on top of full time studies.
In other words, when you look at it 3 months is nothing, 3 months may give you something nice to put on a med school application to which you are likely ill-prepared for (really based on your own post), and 3 months away from your two children and wife for a probable career is nothing. You need to think bigger picture and not just "now" Now it is time away, tomorrow it is being able to help support a household with your wife for your two babies.
Choosing not to do it may not matter later but it's an opportunity that you are clearly finding necessary to reach out to a pack of strangers over. I would do it. Then again I have no children that I am aware of and no husband ... as far as I know.
If you're truly going through medical school I would say that you already have little time as it is now. I would say that considering you've been married for 7 years and you have taken on the responsiblity of children, an undergrad degree, later on med school, I believe you also do something by way of photography ... all of that in my eyes means you're home at night but that's about it. I know when I was in school I was home at night to sleep but that was just about it as I had a full time job on top of full time studies.
In other words, when you look at it 3 months is nothing, 3 months may give you something nice to put on a med school application to which you are likely ill-prepared for (really based on your own post), and 3 months away from your two children and wife for a probable career is nothing. You need to think bigger picture and not just "now" Now it is time away, tomorrow it is being able to help support a household with your wife for your two babies.
Choosing not to do it may not matter later but it's an opportunity that you are clearly finding necessary to reach out to a pack of strangers over. I would do it. Then again I have no children that I am aware of and no husband ... as far as I know.
Of course not. However, Haiti is right close by, cheaper to get to, has a greater acute need, and would accomplish a lot with a shorter time committment away from family. And it would probably look better on a medical school application precisely because of those things. Medical school applications committees, in some cases, tend to get a tiny bit leery of applicants who overcommit to volunteer and religious causes. Most medical schools are looking for well-rounded individuals. That description might not be applied to someone who has an "excessive" amount of volunteerism as part of the package.
Thanks for the continued advice guys; I really appreciate it. I have moved forward with the process to go through with this. I found out that they've altered the dates slightly (and that the initial verbal explanation I got was not 100% accurate). The time commitment is really only 2 months, I'd leave first week of July and be back on the final week of August.
Jessica, you are right, I do have very little time now but it's something I've become accustomed to over the past few years. And it's not so much that I feel like I need to have more for my application (though that never hurts) but more that I am not sure I can put the entire thing together and have it be as strong as I'd like. I wasn't fully aware of how much it takes to get all the necessary letters, personal statements, and other bits and pieces of a successful application together, and I think that if I try and scramble to get it done by June, while at the same time trying to earn high grades in my semester at college, wrap up my fellowship, and spend any sort of time with the family; it just won't be done well enough. After this semester I'm on coast with easy classes and virtually no more experience etc to find for my application, and I can spend essentially an entire year making sure everything is just how I want it.
Anyway like I said, the materials have been submitted, and now it's just a waiting game to see if they still need me come April when the final personnel request is submitted by the Navy, but as of now I'm going until further notice.
Haiti is closer that's certainly true, and I'd love nothing more than to go (though my skills would have been best put to use immediately after the quake, during the search and rescue phase). But that's really not a possibility for me right now as I've tied myself down to a fellowship until June.
I should clarify, this is not a religious cause, it's a humanitarian mission which my church just happens to be involved with, no religious preaching or anything of the sort will be happening. You can google the cause, it's called the Pacific Partnership 2010, my church is one of the NGO's who have partnered with the Navy to provide medical and engineering personnel for the ship during the mission. There will be others from other types of groups as well, even some staff from other nations.
And I've been advised that finding a longer term volunteer cause is the best thing to do for a pre-med student. I've been with the Homeless clinic for almost 2 years now and It's so much more than a mere part of my application to me now. I feel like my experiences working with this population have shaped my views on poverty and suffering to the point where I'd like to spend my career working with people in these types of situations. Sure the people of East Timor aren't the same as the American Homeless, but their plight appears to be similarly bleak, and I happen to have language as well as medical skills to lend to this particular cause so I think it's a natural extension of what I've been doing for the past 2 years and I don't see it as overcommitment to volunteerism at all. I'd be much more limited in what I could do in Haiti than I will be in Timor because of a language barrier. In Timor I can provide care, as well as facilitate better care to be provided by others, I'm really excited about that.
SLC
Jessica, you are right, I do have very little time now but it's something I've become accustomed to over the past few years. And it's not so much that I feel like I need to have more for my application (though that never hurts) but more that I am not sure I can put the entire thing together and have it be as strong as I'd like. I wasn't fully aware of how much it takes to get all the necessary letters, personal statements, and other bits and pieces of a successful application together, and I think that if I try and scramble to get it done by June, while at the same time trying to earn high grades in my semester at college, wrap up my fellowship, and spend any sort of time with the family; it just won't be done well enough. After this semester I'm on coast with easy classes and virtually no more experience etc to find for my application, and I can spend essentially an entire year making sure everything is just how I want it.
Anyway like I said, the materials have been submitted, and now it's just a waiting game to see if they still need me come April when the final personnel request is submitted by the Navy, but as of now I'm going until further notice.
Haiti is closer that's certainly true, and I'd love nothing more than to go (though my skills would have been best put to use immediately after the quake, during the search and rescue phase). But that's really not a possibility for me right now as I've tied myself down to a fellowship until June.
I should clarify, this is not a religious cause, it's a humanitarian mission which my church just happens to be involved with, no religious preaching or anything of the sort will be happening. You can google the cause, it's called the Pacific Partnership 2010, my church is one of the NGO's who have partnered with the Navy to provide medical and engineering personnel for the ship during the mission. There will be others from other types of groups as well, even some staff from other nations.
And I've been advised that finding a longer term volunteer cause is the best thing to do for a pre-med student. I've been with the Homeless clinic for almost 2 years now and It's so much more than a mere part of my application to me now. I feel like my experiences working with this population have shaped my views on poverty and suffering to the point where I'd like to spend my career working with people in these types of situations. Sure the people of East Timor aren't the same as the American Homeless, but their plight appears to be similarly bleak, and I happen to have language as well as medical skills to lend to this particular cause so I think it's a natural extension of what I've been doing for the past 2 years and I don't see it as overcommitment to volunteerism at all. I'd be much more limited in what I could do in Haiti than I will be in Timor because of a language barrier. In Timor I can provide care, as well as facilitate better care to be provided by others, I'm really excited about that.
SLC
I hope you have a great time and learn a lot as you serve and help others on this trip. Keep us posted with pics and updates when the time comes. 
I offer my advice as a surgeon, an assistant adjunct professor at one of this state's medical school, assistant director of an advanced surgical fellowship program, experience as part of medical school admission committees over the years, my daughter's current application to medical school, and over a decade of overseas volunteer work (yes, in Haiti).
I don't know the OP's family issue, nor his financial situation, nor his drive for volunteerism. I post my advice here based on what I know admissions committees look at and how they think.
FWIW
I don't know the OP's family issue, nor his financial situation, nor his drive for volunteerism. I post my advice here based on what I know admissions committees look at and how they think.
FWIW
I do appreciate the advice, and it's not falling on deaf ears I assure you. Haiti is almost certainly out of the question for the reasons stated earlier, but I do have a question for you! Do you think that my going on this trip would be a bad thing in any way with respect to applications. I assure you I am not doing it solely as a way to add more meat to my list of extracurriculars, but also because I'm very very excited about humanitarian work. But will an admissions committee believe that, or are they going to look at it as an attempt to overcompensate?
For what it's worth, perhaps I don't want to attend a program that would look at humanitarian service as a potential negative? The University I'm attending now does not however, I've run it by all the admissions committee people I can and they all seem to think it's a fabulous oportunity and could only help.
SLC
Well I also found out it's not 100% free, it may end up costing me around $300 for Malaria prophilaxis, I'm expected to find and purchase that on my own. But travel and room and board are free.
SLC
No, I don't think they'd look at it as something you've done just to buff up your application. But, as I said, medical school admissions committees like well-rounded individuals. The question could conceivably come up as to whether or not your dedication to volunteerism, if it appears excessive, might take you out of that particular category. This is going to vary from school to school.
I do think it is likely very wise to actually go to the Dean of Admissions at the medical school you're most interested in and ask him/her this question directly.
Doxycycline 100mg daily ought to cost you about $35- $40 for the 4 months you'd need it.
I heard there are better methods than Doxycycline though, but they're more expensive. I believe the drug I was reccomended was malarone.
SLC
I don't think malarone is more any effective than doxy. Look it up at CDC.gov. I think you'll find they are equivalent prophylaxis.
Get a two week or one month supply and pick up the rest once you get there. That's what I do when I go to India. Check the legal requirements and see if you can put together a 501c3 to raise the funds, if you don't want to pay for it out of pocket. I'd donate.
Heck, you seem like a good conversation - I'll take you guys out to dinner next time we go out to visit my sister-in-law.
Update:
I'm all set to go on this trip. My flight out of SLC is scheduled for July 1st and I should be on board the ship by July 3rd. I have my appointment with the travel clinic at the local university for next week but I only have one shot that I need so shouldn't be too bad (working in the homeless clinic has given me access to most of the vaccines I was recommended to get).
I'm really excited for this opportunity, and can't wait to get there. I will keep people updated on the mission if anyone's interested, apparently my quarters will have WiFi access (per emails from volunteers already there) so posting stories and photos should be fairly easy.
Anyway, just wanted to give people an update on the program!
SLC
I'm all set to go on this trip. My flight out of SLC is scheduled for July 1st and I should be on board the ship by July 3rd. I have my appointment with the travel clinic at the local university for next week but I only have one shot that I need so shouldn't be too bad (working in the homeless clinic has given me access to most of the vaccines I was recommended to get).
I'm really excited for this opportunity, and can't wait to get there. I will keep people updated on the mission if anyone's interested, apparently my quarters will have WiFi access (per emails from volunteers already there) so posting stories and photos should be fairly easy.
Anyway, just wanted to give people an update on the program!
SLC
So I'm here on the ship. I arrived 5 days ago actually, but I've been busy getting acclimated and the internet is actually not very good here. I don't know why I expected it to be since we're getting it in the middle of the sea, I suppose I should just be thankful that we have it at all.
Anyway, I don't think that uploading photos will be that productive so I'll just leave a link to the blog/journal I've been keeping. There are stories and photos there if you're interested.
For now I will attach a couple of photos from this part of the world, maybe just to lure you in to my blog:
www.waterloggedemt.wordpress.com
Check it out!
Anyway, I don't think that uploading photos will be that productive so I'll just leave a link to the blog/journal I've been keeping. There are stories and photos there if you're interested.
For now I will attach a couple of photos from this part of the world, maybe just to lure you in to my blog:
www.waterloggedemt.wordpress.com
Check it out!
