bay islands

Can we even do this much on Roatan!

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If you are on Roatan and you don’t read this shame on you.Having said that, Happy Holidays everybody! But seriously please read this, it’s important.

When you or a family member is ill or injured, where do you turn?

If you’re like most in our community, you go to a hospital or a clinic.

Why?
Because you know you will receive medical care that only a qualified Professional can provide. You probably go to Clinica Esperanza or as we islanders call it, Miss Peggy clinic, because you know that you’ll be treated like a real person, by dedicated, compassionate health professionals in a warm, caring environment.

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As most of you know I am a local islander on an unlikely journey, fighting against all odds, to become a doctor. If there is somebody that knows and cares for the people of Roatan both tourist, expats, and local it’s me.  Being a doctor with a message of hope and change in my community is something that I badly want to do, it is what I believe my purpose is in life and is something I will continue to work hard for if given the chance. To do this I need your help.

While having medical brigades is awesome, when you train a local doctor that knows and is a part of local communities, you are helping touch the lives of thousands– whether patients are facing an urgent need, a devastating disease or seeking to improve their quality of life. Your aid can help make the difference

I want to be the vehicle thru which you can make a difference.  I want to serve you and your loved ones – to provide hope, healing and recovery. Your gift for this next year of schooling is extremely important because it will enable me to learn the clinical skills that can one day make a real difference in the lives of many.2015-gift-never-waster-graphic

Your gift of any amount to my fundraising campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/esa4t2b7 will help me continue on this journey,  and will help make an immediate impact on urgently needed health services for our community.

I am committed to working hard to honour your gift by being all that I can be – for you, for your loved ones, for every person in the community.  Please help to make this possible with your contribution.

I need your support. You and I can make a difference. Right here. Right now.

Thank you so much for your help.
Natan Webster
https://www.facebook.com/medstudenthonduras/

Calling out the village people: Yes YOU!

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margaretmead101283 (2)This week thanks to our governments eternal love for holidays… for being such a poor country boy we sure do have a bunch of holidays but this post is not about that it’s about you…. As I was saying because of the holidays I got to come home to Roatan for this week, it has been great to spend time with my mom and sisters, meet with some people who have been helping me in my journey and see old friends. I LOVE my country and I love my island, Roatan is a very unique place filled with many wonderful people. People from all over the world come here to call this place home, or to get a view of the beauty that is found here.

Today I am calling some of those people out and I´m putting you on the spot.
I have seen some of the reporting concerning the local hospital but I refrained from commenting till I came home and could get a close up look. My friends what is going on with the hospital is a damn shame but it’s our fault. We have made great investment on this island our infrastructure is getting there we have some beautiful resorts we have some awesome restaurants yes our roads are awful and our hospital is …. Well I don’t need to tell you, but we have not invested in our human resource, education is a huge problem for us. Now I am not saying that we do not have highly educated people here because we do, but we need more. I was telling a friend, don’t you think this situation would be a lot different if the minister of health was someone from the island or if we had somebody in the minister´s office? Dr Raymond is an awesome doctor but he was left to hold the forth alone, but he couldn´t he needs reinforcement. we need Highly qualified people with a passion for our community and only then things will change.

Here is the good news, the cavalry is coming! But your help is needed!

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Consider this a shameless plug because well…. that´s what it is. See, for the past three years I have had a village of friends who have helped me on my journey to become a doctor with a message and a mission here in Honduras. Thanks to them next year I will be taking my last semester classes then I will start my rotations, But to do that I need your help I need you to dream with me.

I am running a fundraiser to raise 8000 dollars to cover a full year of medical school, without raising the money I would not be able to fulfil my calling. I have tried to tell some, it is great for us to have missionary trips and medical brigades and I sure appreciate the people who are willing to take the time and money to do that they fill such an important role that someday I hope to become one of them, it’s largely because of their influence in my life that I have a much different view on life than other guys who grow up in extreme poverty the way I did, but the best we can do is to help train people in the community our effect would be much greater and the ripple effect in doing so is really immeasurable.

I would like to one of those local strategic investments you can make today, I am asking you to help me on this journey. Please go on over to http://www.solsite.org and click the donate button today.  I cannot do this without your help. Please also consider sharing my story with your friends via Facebook. I greatly appreciate any action taken to help me. I know trying to raise 8000 dollars is hard but I must try, I am trusting God and YOU to help me get there.

I proudly continue working hard to be a community doctor. I continue to dream of helping and healing people and with your help. Please go on over to SOL today and chip in to help get me accross the finish line.Make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line, and please make sure to share this post with your friends. Also remember that all donations made via SOL are tax deductible.

I need 150 people to donate 48 dollars to reach my goal, friend I am calling on you to consider investing in me today, and to sharing my journey with your friends. If I could get a loan I would, I don’t mind graduating with some debt I just want to graduate, I just want an opportunity to be all that I can be, I want an opportunity to prove myself and to be the change I want to see in the world.

donate here now help me get over the finish line.

I am thankful to my mentors, friends, and supporters who continue to share my story with others.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

I´ve had choices!

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I’ve had choices , since the day that I was born.
There were voices , that told me right from wrong.
If I had listened , no I wouldn’t be here today.
Livin’ and dyin’ , with the choices I’ve made.

I received news today of a young man, named Crist, being murdered on the island. Crist and I grew up next door to each other, while he and I were never really friends we were neighbors. I knew him quite well and am saddened by what has happened to him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Hearing of Crist´s untimely passing made me think of the past. I remember very well one night hanging with a few boys at the corner of our neighborhood, the guys there that night were Jeremy, Alstan, Fredy, Edmond, Crist, Murphy, Leroy, and Natan(me). we were between 9 and 12 years old, it wasn´t a school night so this is usually the nights we were allowed to stay out. I cannot remember everything but I remember we were having a wrestling competition as boys usually do. little did we know or even think about the turns our lives would take.

Fast forward to today. Oh what a different picture. Jeremy, the fun loving clown of the group,  is currently unemployed and has problems with drugs and alcohol. Alstan ,the shy one, has been in and out of jail and also has a terrible drug addiction. Fredy got involved in the gangs was in and out of jail until he was found dead in the woods. Edmond ,the bully, got involved with the gangs managed to keep himself out of jail but ended up murdering a young men earlier this year and last I heard was in jail. Murphy got on some very heavy stuff ended up brained damaged, he was a drug addict and a thief until he was too found dead in the woods earlier this year. Leroy ,the rich kid, moved to the U.S last I heard he had joined the army or something like that. And Crist , the too cool for school one, well he got in trouble and was murdered this morning.

Yep, these were the kids I grew up with they had almost the same opportunities and upbringing as I did. how did we end up on such different paths? How did these boys end up all messed up in life, and I…. well a little less so. I was talking to my mother this morning about how Christ Freddy and Murphy were my next door neighbors, these were they kids ,my age, that lived in the houses around us in Coxen Hole and they are all dead. All three murdered, that thought is surreal to me!

I dot know what the answer is, why things happened as they did. But I thank God for the mind he gave me to seek out a different path, a better path! I am thankful for the people and the influences he brought into my life.I am thankful for my mother and the way she raised me.
I have truly had choices along the way, and I have made some bad ones and some good ones. I remember the first time someone offered me a cigarette I tried it, bent over nearly vomited and decided never to try it again. I remember my dad and brother laughing at me when I went to visit him because I would not drink alcohol. Yea thank God he didn´t raise me. This is not say that people who smoke cigarretes or drink alcohol are gonna end up this way, it’s that at the age this was offered to me it would have been a very bad choice for me!

I choose a couple years ago to come into the capital to enroll in a medical program, a choice I did not make likely, the capital is a dangerous place and coming here would mean giving up a lot. I am very poor and medical school is incredibly expensive so I knew raising the money to finish would be difficult at best. my mother is in her fifties and a single woman so not working for eight years would mean me not being able to help my mother for eight years, my girlfriend, my church family, my job, these were all very hard choices to make. would I even be successful? what if I failed the very first class?

Again I thank God for giving me the courage to make good choices. One of the things I am most looking forward to is being able to look young people in the face, young men like Crist and Murphy , and say to them there is a better way, hard work and determination does pay. Here is how I did it, let me tell you my story ! And let me tell you if you make good choices there is an army of people, Dr Nate being number one, that will stand behind you. I am thankful for Peggy Stranges Over at Clinica Esperanza , Mark and Dave Elmore over at SOL who supported my choice to come to medical school and helped open a way for that to happen even when they knew very little about me.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “in the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility”

As most of you know I started my fundraising campaign for the following year of medical school in october with the goal of raising 1750 dollars to help cover the 7000 dollars needed to stay in medical school here in tegus.
Thanks to Generous donations from Karin Fehlauer, Janice Fehlauer, Caroline power, Averard D’Souza,Jess ica Pfeltz,Ma Barley, and Anna Boucher Moskowits  I have raised 1350 dollars for the next school year and step in this journey. I still need to raise 400 dollars to be able to come back next year and I need your help to do so.

If you would like to help me on this journey go on over tohttp://www.solsite.org and click the donate button today. I can not do this without your help. Please consider sharing my story with your friends via Facebook. I greatly appreciate any action taken to help me.

I proudly continue working hard to be a community doctor. I continue to dream of helping and healing people and with your help. Please go on over to SOL today and chip in to help get me accross the finish line.Make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line, and please make sure to share this post with your friends. Also remember that all donations made via SOL are tax deductible.

donate here now help me get over the finish line.

I am thankful to my mentors, friends, and supporters who continue to share my story with others.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Will you be a part of this?

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Dear Friends and Family,
I write this post with excitement, great Joy and hope for the future, as I continue my journey into medical school. As most of you know with help from Miss Peggy Stranges and Sol foundation I applied to and passed the admission testing, making more than the minimum requirement to enter medical school in Honduras in the summer of 2011.

My road to medical school has been challenging at best, as few students in my situation have tried to gain access to medical programs and succeeded, and of those who succeed to get in even fever actually get thru the program. I was born in less than ideal circumstances and have had and uphill battle all the way constantly beating long odds to overcome the challenges of life. I am the oldest of four siblings, and while growing up very poor with a single mother who did and awesome job considering the circumstances, I truly am a product of my family and communities hard work and perseverance, there are so many people that have invested time and energy in my journey way long before they even knew I was headed to medical school, Like Ptolemy and Neysa Matthews, and Joelle Fehlauer who came down to Honduras to volunteer time in a christian school I attended,all of whom made and incredible impression on me at a time when I was really struggling, fighting battles they knew nothing about.

I worked for three years at the local hospital in roatan, it was here that I truly became  inspired me to dream big and go beyond the expectations of my neighborhood. I know that inequities exist, and my curiosity for healing and justice deppened. I have made it my personal mission to improve conditions that prevent others from having equal treatment and access to education and healthcare resources. I have made it my mission to ease human suffering I believe this is the reason I was born.

My friends and mentors have said that I am a trailblazer, that I have taken the road less traveled, and that in the face of insurmountable challenges , I have overcome the greatest of obstacles. The reality is that I have had much help to be where I am today, and at every step of the way, I have encountered and relied on the kindness of friends, neighbors, teachers, and mentors to teach me and guide me through the process.

Now once more I must rely on the kindness of others to help me through my next step in medical school. Because Honduras really does not offer formal financial aid programs, or student loans, especially for poor people in medical school who´s parent has no valuable assets . I must fundraise to cover my medical school expenses in order to see my dream of becoming a community doctor come true. While I worked to pay my own way through high school, I am unable to work as a medical student due to the high volume of classes and information I will be required to learn over the next few years. I receive a partial scholarship from the foundation for the advancement of people administered by SOL foundation. which comes under review each year. This agreements as most of you probably already know requires that I raise part of the funds I need from the community.

It takes about 7000 dollars per year for me to stay in the program. I have a formula thru which Sol and Rotary provide roughtly 75% of this which leaves me to raise 1750 dollars per year. I have done this the past two years online with help from many friends. Well it is October I am about done with this year and it is time to do it again friends. I will be meeting with rotary and Sol in December to determine plans for the next year and whether they will continue funding me or not. But how about we start to raise our share and exceed it by them. I got help raising funds for this year from so many of you. Tricia, Anna, Nicki, Jennifer,Mark, Roatan homes, Peggy, Dave  and so many others shared my story and helped me raise the funds I needed for this year in about two weeks.

Friends, today I humbly ask you to dream with me. I am asking you to once again support my goal of becoming a physician by helping sponsor another year of my medical education, It would be impossible for me to do this without your help. My goal is to fundraise at least the 1750 dollars in order to help meet the 7000 dollars I will need for the next school year. . I am doing what I can in applying to scholarships, finding alternative measures of funding, and now asking for your support.

I know there are many other needs and I have seem so many request for money lately on Facebook for so many good causes, I also know that while we would like to help everyone there is only so much we can do. I have lamented how politicians are able to raise so much money from so many donors while many charities are lacking funding. But the truth is  one of the reasons they are able to do so is because a lot of people know about them.

Friend one of the best things you can do besides chipping in yourself is making sure to share this with your friends. I know there are many people who would be glad to help if they only knew about my dream and my story. After all, all I need is 1750 people to donate 1 dollar.

As I have mentioned before I am only able to continue on this journey because of the generous support of people like you, I would really appreciate it if you would go over to sol foundation website and make a donation of any amount to help me thru next year and to help me complete this program. I assure you I will honor that donation in loving service, and by making sure I am doing everything I can to pay it forward. Just make sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication box. Every penny sent to sol with the dedication line Natan Webster is administered to my scholarship Program, and is a foundational stone in helping me become a doctor with a message and a mission in Honduras.

http://www.solsite.org/

Cesar words resonate with my life goals of community work — “We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” I believe in the power we have as a community and hope that you can help me reach my dream of becoming a physician.
Thanks to the support of many I am about to finish and will soon be posting grades for macro-anatomy, neuro-anatomy,embryology,histology, and public health.

With your help next year, I’ll be able to finish physiology, bioquem, psychology, public health,microbiology, and genetics 

I proudly continue working hard to be a community doctor. I continue to dream of helping and healing people and with your help, I will be one step closer to creating a healthier, and more just world for all of us.
Please go on over to SOL today and chip in making sure to type Natan Webster in the dedication line, and please make sure to share this post with your friends. Also remember that all donations made via SOL are tax deductible.

donate here now

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Thank you!

The first week!!!

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Several things have been made painfully obvious to me in my first week of medical school. First of all, it’s true – med students probably cover just as much in one week as general science students do in a month, the pace is ridiculous. Every day is a struggle to keep my head above water. We, as medical students, are expected to memorize a nauseating amount of information, and then regurgitate it on test day. Falling behind, even for a day, could be fatal. I study after I study and I still feel like I don’t study enough. Currently my schedule is as follows:

Monday-Friday

Classes:  9 to 5 it takes and hour for me to get to and from the faculty

Dinner : 6-7

Study: 7 my brain turns into cheese, usually around 11pm

Overall I study between 60-70 hours per week

 Second, This thing is ridiculously expensive, found out pretty early on in the week that I do not have enough money to cover books and lab material, and uniform cost, which means I have to figure something out by Monday.

Okay, enough about the sad/boring stuff. The faculty is awesome! It’s fun getting to school, reading the lecture topic for the day, thinking that “oh, I’ve studied a little of this before”, and then concluding the lecture with “I don’t remember EVER learning this before.” I have some of the most well-rounded classmates in the country, and we’re constantly pushing each other to learn everything we possibly can about the human body. The professors are awesome (and have a great sense of humor), the facilities are fantastic and the curriculum is solid! :-) I am surprised that my favorite class so far is by far neuroanatomy and histology is a close second. Anywho, here are two of my experiences that have made my week.

Story Number 1:

We had a faculty induction course on Thursday, by this point we had already meet all our professors received all our class plans and already had a bunch of assignments and books to buy. I went into the lecture at 7A.M feeling pretty down. One by the realization that I did not have nearly enough money to cover the cost of the things being required of me, and another by the sheer volume of stuff that was being heaped on us all at once. When I got there I had an immediate change of mood I saw so many people that I had taken different classes with the past 2 plus years at the university and while making small talk with different ones. I realized that we are all in this together, we are all going thru more or less the same thing and that most of us will survive, because that is our nature, we would not have gotten this far if it wasn’t. The course was a reminder to me of why I had chosen this difficult road and how my God will always put in my path the things that I need to get thru it. I came out of that course feeling reinvigorated and ready to go.

Story Number 2:

Friday afternoon I got out of embriology early and went to have lunch with some classmates and again I was feeling a little stressed out becuase of trying to figure out how to get my hands on all the material being required of me. Well I was deep in thought, thinking about coming up with the money to buy my disection kit. When my friend vicki says right out of the blue “You know it is amazing to me, I have known Natan for two plus year, we took our very first class together, and I have never seen him stressed, I mean even on test days the guy is just always relaxed and ready.” I was like which Natan are you talking about? Cause this Natan is freaking out right now.

After finishing lunch, we then went to histology. Like I said, I have surprisingly taken a liking to this class, Although for some reason the professor keeps calling on me, its like my name is the first name she learned so she just keeps going to it, which i don’t mind because it keeps me attentive and I am learning a lot. The subject we were doing today was really complicated and to me was so amazing. I came out of that class thinking about how much I love this career. I love the long classes, I love working with the cadaver and the microscope. I love all the amazing things I am learning about the greatest structure the world has ever known, the human body, and the many tools that help us study and take care of this body.
 
Medical school is hard and very stressful, But I am so glad that God and so may good people have given me this opportunity. I absolutely love it and am very excited about what all this semester will hold and all the things I will learn and hopefully, someday, being able to use that knowledge to help people. Yep its just the first week of faculty classes, it is hard and stressful and I love it.  And I thank you so much again for helping me be here. I would love to hear from you, how about leaving a quick note or sending me an email? or just passing my blog along to a friend so they can read it too.
Thank you for everything you do to help me. May God richly bless you.