unah

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.

Dressed in white, ready for service!!!!

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There is something about going to the faculty that inspires me.

When I was going thru the issue in my last post, and just feeling terrible. I went over to the faculty the other day even tho I didn´t have class, because I had to see my faculty director about planning for next year courses. I got there around 10 AM and sat in the lobby waiting for him to show up. As I sat there I started to notice the students in white, those 5th year and above ( yea we don´t get to dress like that till 5th year) walking in and out of the faculty administrative building for diver reasons. The faculty is right next to the teaching hospital (for obvious reasons). A man coming to the hospital with problems somehow ended up in the administrative faculty building lobby, the students that were in that lobby inmediately sprang to action, taking control of the situation and making sure the man got the help that he needed.  For that moment I forgot all about the issues, and problems I was dealing with, I saw the future and I was inspired. It was like no other place in the world existed.

There is something about seeing all those students dressed in white that always makes me hopeful. See all those guys were at some point where I´m at now, all of them had to go thru the hard work, and still have quite a bit of work ahead of them. All of them sacrifice 5 years, family ,friendships , relationships, etc. to get to that point. And that´s what its about helping people, about doing all that we can for our fellowmen, its a great love for all of God´s children, and I am glad that the Lord has brought me to this place.

Another thing that I noticed, and if you look at the picture above you´ll notice that there is not a black face in that group. One thing I have noticed whenever I go over to the faculty is that I have never seen another black student there. Even at the university out of 19 classes that I have taken I have only had one black classmate in one class, and that was a girl. Now, I won´t get into why there are very few black guys in medicine, because there are a lot of reasons, But, it does add a little more pressure.Its not just about me. I have to make it and I have to be the best. Because there are people like one profesor said to me who believe that black guys can´t cut it in medicine, you are here to prove that is not the case. Dr Ben Carson anybody? But yea that does add some motivation.

 

In my last post I was talking about a pretty terrible person that had done me wrong. But this event made me think about some of the great people I have meet along the way that have done me right. One of my conlusions in my last post was that there are some bad people in the world and some are worse than others. But you know what, there are also some pretty awesome people in this world and most of them are not dressed in white and in med school, but those of us that are, are priviledged indeed.                        One of those people is Mark over at Sol foundation, I have been truly impressed with how much Mark works with us to make sure things are going well, we can always count on him to help us figure things out. It is amazing to me how he goes out of his way to help us be successful. I really couldn´t do this without his assistance and guidance.

Very hopefull that  some day with God´s help I´ll be one of those people dressed in white, but for now I need to go bury my face in a biophysics book. 

By the way as you know I am on a partial scholarship and depend on good people like you helping to make my dream of becoming a doctor with a message and a mission in honduras a reality. If you would like to help me to this or would like to learn more follow the link below. Make sure to put Natan Webster in the dedication line. 

http://www.solsite.org/

Any action taking will be greatly appreciated, let me know your thoughts. Love to hear suggestions.