Polite Dissent

Let’s be honest: food is important. As a medical student, I was on the Air Force Health Professions Scholarship. That meant that while my tuition and school fees were paid for, the modest stipend I was given to live off of placed me below the poverty line. I didn’t have many expenses, so I was able to get by without much trouble. I drove an old car and had a dinky apartment in the better part of Maplewood (which isn’t saying much). I pretty much lived off of cold cereal, ramen noodles, and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee for the first two years of school.

During the third and fourth years of med school, I spent the vast majority of my waking hours (and many of my sleeping hours) at the hospital, so I didn’t eat at home nearly as much. Most of the hospitals we worked at took our student finances into account and provided a discount on meals. For instance, the children’s hospital gave us a 10% discount in the cafeteria. We could get up to five dollars worth of food free at Deaconess Hospital whenever we were on duty. St. John’s Mercy had a similar policy, but a more generous dollar amount and a much better cafeteria, so I would eat there some days when I wasn’t even working. Saint Louis University Hospital had printed up little bills of fake money — like Monopoly money — that was good in their cafeteria. Residents got a stack of these bills, but as med students we got a mere $20 per month. I was never particularly frugal, so I’d eat well for the first week and then suffer for the next three. (The Saint Louis University Hospital cafeteria was also infamous for making the gravy for biscuits and gravy out of chicken stock. While it was generously full of sausage, it was also yellow and strongly chicken flavored. I would still eat it though.)

The downtown VA hospital offered a 10% cafeteria discount, like the children’s hospital. The other VA hospital, Jefferson Barracks, fed us lunch for free. Unlike the downtown VA hospital, Jefferson Barracks was set up for long term care and rehabilitation, including a psychiatric hospital. As part of our psychiatry rotation, we had to do a month there. I ended up assigned to the Geriatric Psychiatric unit, the least desirable floor. I worked there along with two other students, Mark and David. Mark was a good friend. He was smart and a hard worker. He was happily married; he had met his wife when they were both in junior high and they’d been together ever since. David was the opposite. He wasn’t particularly bright and tended to procrastinate and slack off. David was one of those people who got bypassed when common sense was being handed out. He was already notorious around the school for showing up in his pajamas at a Code Blue when he was on surgery call. He also let it be known in no uncertain terms that he was God’s gift to women.

Jefferson Barracks provided all medical students with a free lunch. It was served in the hospital cafeteria and was the same meal the patient’s got. It was nothing fancy, just plain cafeteria food, but it was free. Day after day, fewer and fewer medical students showed up for lunch until at last it was just me and Mark. As I said, it wasn’t horrible and it was free.

Occasionally, one of the pharmacy students rotating at the VA would join us for lunch. One day in particular, Mark and I were joined by Susan. She was a cute blonde pharmacy student who we knew from some of our psych lectures.

“I hear that there’s a medical school Halloween party coming up,” she said as she sat next to me.

“Yes. This Saturday,” I replied.

“Are you going?”

“I think so.”

“Are you going with anybody?” she asked, leaning closer.

“Nope,” I said, munching my spaghetti.

“I’m free this weekend,” she added.

“That’s nice,” I said as I went on blissfully eating.

Later, as Mark and I were walking back to the psych building, he turned to me and said, “You do realize she was flirting with you?”

I stopped mid-step. “She was?” I thought it over. “Oh my God, she was.” I’ve never been able to tell when someone is interested in me; I’ve always been horribly naive that way. It was a sad situation: a pretty girl was flirting with me, and not only did I fail to realize it, but I had to be told by someone who’d pretty much been married since eighth grade.

I went back to the cafeteria but she was long gone by then. We told David the story when we got back to the unit and he sprinted off to the cafeteria himself, convinced that she was only flirting with me because he hadn’t been there. He couldn’t find her either.

I still attended the Halloween Party and had a good time, even though it did lead to a date that was so bad it would put sit-com writers to shame…but that’s a post for another day. And, of course, there was free food at the party.