#1 - Free Food

Perhaps this topic is not simply limited to medical students, but medical students being the center of this blog... We are obviously the only individuals that matter.

The 2 words combined "free" and "food" are enough to perk the ears of any medical student. It is not only the cost of tuition that would cause trembling in any humble homo sapiens ($40,000 in one year for only tuition?!?). Classrooms with 3 folding chairs as a bed and a backpack for a pillow suffice for our abode, not to mention there is no need to pay for heating, electricity, water, or cleaning.

However, there is no substitute for the glucose required for brain function. Within the first week of biochemistry, we learn that the conversion of fuel stores from sources other than fats (aka the Freshman 15 despite countless hours in the gym before a spring break trip to the Bahamas) is an inefficient process of obtaining glucose for metabolism (Joules for creation < Joules provided). The constant ingestion of oral glucose, coffee, Red Bull, Jolt, Vault, Monster, and 5 hour energy drinks will no doubt hold us through the first exam.

After the first year, we definitely will have experienced the symptoms of Kwashiorkor (a disease due to the lack of protein in our diet) and may even become the poster adult of "Click to Give" or "Feed My Starving Children". Without free food, there would be no doubt a surplus of cadavers for next year's class.

So a word to the wise: If you ever need to make an announcement to medical students, begin with "free food" and you will have everybody's attention. All of a sudden, we will all have an interest in medical genetics, otolaryngology, or colorectal surgery residencies. Make it a buffet or something ethnic (Chinese always appreciated) and you will have the entire student body (plus friends and significant others) in attendance.

A meeting without free food? Unless you happen to have guaranteed positions for top residencies to all in attendance- you will have a weak showing. It is in medical school that free food becomes the contemporary manna.

It doesn't matter if it's pizza that has been sitting there for a few days and has a new source of fiber (mold), or leftovers from an administrators' meeting that has thermodynamically equilibrated with room temperature (they obviously have no problem in catering meals off our tuition), or a half-eaten bag of chips (that one student can't finish because it's all he's eaten in the past week).

Medical students will never turn down free food. Unless- it involves a long meeting right before an exam, but even then, there's no reason not to walk in for free food and walk out when we're done eating.