Peace Corps Taught Matthew Stockton Flexibility, Sensitivity and Patience

Matthew Stockton, MPH, public health advisor, GAP/IPDB, says, "My Mom worked all over the world for Shell Oil and my Dad was in Vietnam with the International Voluntary Service teaching English in the early 1960s, so I guess it was inevitable that I would join the Peace Corps. I was accepted into a few Occupational Therapy programs my senior year at Wabash College, but the calling to explore another country and culture was too tempting to pass up."

Stockton was a rural agriculture extension volunteer in Gabon, Africa from 1997-1999. "I worked mostly with village women doing organic gardening. The idea was to help enhance the family’s nutrition and allow the women earn a few extra CFA (Central African Francs) selling their produce in the local markets. As a young man in Peace Corps, I thought I was impervious to falling ill and was careless about my health. I tried to live like the people in my village and did not sleep under a mosquito net, ate nearly everything that was offered to me (including monkey), stopped boiling and filtering my drinking water, and did not wash my hands as often as I should. During my two years in Gabon I got sick, a lot. I had Malaria, Dengue, Giardia, intestinal parasites, and a whole host of other random fevers that Peace Corps volunteers simply dubbed ‘arbo virus illness.’ When I returned to the US in 2000, I decided to pursue a MPH in Communicable Diseases from the University of South Florida. Experiencing many developing countries’ public health issues and diseases first hand definitely was a benefit in graduate school."

Today Stockton is working with the Global AIDS Program (GAP) in the International Operations Team as a Public Health Advisor. "About sixty percent of my time is spent out in the field working on management and administrative issues with our GAP Field Offices. Gabon is a francophone country, so being able to speak French has helped out tremendously in my work some GAP countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Also, my Peace Corps experience taught me the ‘art’ of flexibility, sensitivity, and patience when traveling overseas and dealing with other people and their cultures."

Stockton has been with CDC since the fall of 2002 when he joined the Public Health Prevention Program (PHPS).