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Brooklyn
Memoir (2)
Cafeteria at Kings County Hospital
 Kings County Hospital |
All residents at Kings County Hospital were given meal tickets, so
that we would survive if we ate in the hospital. First year residents
worked on- call every third day regardless holidays; we had to work
32 hours non-stop every third day! Therefore, we often ate all our meals
at the cafeteria. Japanese people often think that food is the most
important thing in life. However, I am luckily in that I am the exception.
I ate any and all American food every day without difficulty. I could
sometimes eat rice, American style, as a side dish or vegetable, although
it was cooked much less sticky than Japanese rice.
There was usually too much food served at every meal compared with the
usual Japanese amount of food. So I thought it fun to take home milk
and chocolate cake. Since the life of first year residents was so stressful,
we usually ate too much to lessen the stress and of course to reserve
energy to survive the long work hours.
I gained 20 pounds, which is about 10 kilos, in the first one year.
To tell the truth, my most favorite meal at the cafeteria was the French
toast. I found the French toast with a lot of butter and fresh coffee
were the best combination in the morning after busy night on-call.