ABSTRACT
by Alice Chen-Plotkin, MD We would be working like crazy somewhere or other during on-call nights, and then there would be this must-not-miss hour where the free 9pm meal would be served. As the senior resident, I'd page all the juniors and the medical students to remind them to go down to the basement cafeteria to eat - usually something that was similar to a bad Thanksgiving-day meal (turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, questionable salad, Pepsi if the fountain machine was working - 50/50 chance).You'd see all the other on-call residents down there, and the cafeteria would be full of humor (sometimes toxically tinged) and a spirit of camaraderie. We would sometimes cheer when the last member of the team on call arrived from wherever they had been working in the hospital, and everyone had made it to the 9pm meal.
