This is part of a series in which I’ll describe our experience applying to the Peace Corps. It took 17 months from our initial contact with a recruiter to when we departed and there was a multitude of tasks involved, from the initial applications to online learning before we left.

Upon receiving our invitation to serve in the Peace Corps, we were given numerous legal and medical steps that we had to complete. Service is contingent upon receiving legal and medical clearance, so while we had already been invited to serve, we were not yet ‘official’. The legal clearance was easy but took a long time whereas the medical clearance was more involved but quicker to get in the end.

The legal clearance consisted of two steps: a background check and fingerprinting. For the background check, we went online and filled out our personal information, giving the Peace Corps permission to run a background check on us. They then sent us each an envelope containing blank cards for fingerprinting. We visited the local police station and paid $5 per card to have our fingerprints taken. I mailed these via UPS and we were done with the steps given for legal clearance. After completing these steps at the end of February, we had to wait until the middle of July to receive legal clearance. It was an easy process, but took a long time to come.

Jon thought it was fun to go in the back room at the police station and get fingerprinted.

The medical clearance consisted of two parts: medical and dental. This process turned out to be very involved and time-consuming for us. After sorting through numerous forms in an online portal, I figured out what each of us would need and scheduled appointments. For medical, these consisted of: physical examination, cervical screening (Lana only), bloodwork to test for a variety of diseases, paperwork to prove we have received childhood vaccinations, and paperwork describing any medications we were taking. While this doesn’t sound like a long list, it took us a long time to complete it. We had to track down childhood immunization records and ultimately discovered Jon had not received full vaccination against Rubella, so had to get that vaccination. I had to call my old OBGYN from Michigan and have them send paperwork that I needed to submit and we also had to scan in copies of all our previous vaccinations. The office that processed our blood work tested for the wrong form of Hepatitis B (I didn’t even know there were different forms/tests!), so we had to be retested.

After 3 rounds of blood work, I was finally cleared!

For the dental portion, we each got a set of full x-rays taken that had to be submitted along with an examination by the dentist. Any problems that were discovered had to be fixed before we could be cleared. Jon had a cavity that was filled and a tooth extracted (an old root canal gone bad). While I didn’t have any problems after my exam, the Peace Corps thought I had a crack in one of my fillings. My dentist confirmed that there was no crack, but replaced the filling anyway, since I would not have been cleared otherwise. This step was a little bit frustrating for me, since the Peace Corps dentist didn’t agree with my dentist and it required some extra work to get everything cleared up.

In the end, after many doctor and dental appointments, we were both granted legal and medical clearance to serve in the Peace Corps. I had no idea how involved this process would be and how many appointments we would have to go to. Based on our experience with the legal and medical clearances, I have a couple of tips for future applicants:

• As soon as you apply, start finding and gathering all of your medical records. It took a few weeks for us to track down everything we needed. At one point, I called a church associated with the grade school that Jon attended for one year to find out if they had a copy of his childhood immunization records (since neither of his parents had it anymore). The retired principle from the school (which had since closed) attended the church and was able to track down a copy in storage.
• Keep a copy of all your receipts from medical and dental appointments, since you can get reimbursed up to a certain amount. My advice would be to wait until you have received medical clearance before submitting receipts. I naively thought we were finished after our first round and submitted receipts for reimbursement. However, we had additional appointments that we had to do after that and could not get reimbursement for those (you are only allowed to submit one round of receipts).
• Have your doctor or dentist write a detailed explanation if there is any question on something you have submitted. I could have had my dentist write a note about my filling and submitted that in the hopes that the Peace Corps would have been satisfied with his assessment of the tooth. I decided to have the filling replaced anyway, since it appeared to be less hassle and was the quicker path to getting medical clearance.
• Make sure that the appointment for your physical examination is with a doctor, not a nurse. The Peace Corps lists the accreditations that they require for this exam. However, other appointments (such as blood work) can be completed by a nurse.

A quick trip to the police station to be fingerprinted was half of the legal clearance process.

One additional item that we had to complete was to apply for new passports. While Jon and I each have current passports, the Peace Corps issues us a special passport that we use during our service. We went to the post office and got new pictures taken and turned in our applications. It took a while because the post office where we went had never had a request for a no-fee, Peace Corps passport before so had to look up a lot of the information for the applications. We paid a fee to the post office for processing but did not have to pay for the passports themselves. These were submitted at the beginning of June and we will receive the new passports at staging in Philadelphia.

After being invited to the Peace Corps, we expected that we would have more steps to take. This article describes the medical and legal clearances that we completed during this period. My next article will talk about the online learning, forms to fill out, and additional paperwork required. Joining the Peace Corps is not a quick or easy process, but will be well worth it once we are finished!

To learn more about our Peace Corps application process, read the other posts in this series:

• Applying to the Peace Corps: Timeline
• Applying to the Peace Corps: Application and Interviews
• Applying to the Peace Corps: Invitee Tasks (coming soon!)