During my residency more than 20 years ago, I was sleep deprived and gained a lot of weight. After rounding in the hospital well past midnight on a Sunday, I shuffled slowly into the breakroom between the surgical and medical ICUs. A large tub of fried chicken sat unattended on the table, no doubt purchased by a well-meaning member of the night team trying to support their shift-worker colleagues. They hadn't accounted for me, the overworked, sleep-deprived third-year medical resident struggling through the backstretch of a 36-hour marathon call.
The more basic areas of my brain leapt into action. The precious effort required for higher-order cortical processing couldn't be wasted or simply wasn't possible at that point in the night
