Why Residents Always Get the Best Snacks (and Med Students Get None)

The Hierarchy of Snacks: Who Gets the Last Granola Bar in the Call Room?

1. The Great Snack Divide: Understanding the Hierarchy

• Hospital snack culture is a delicate, unspoken hierarchy of power and privilege.
  
  
• The pecking order determines who gets first dibs on the best snacks and who is left with expired saltine crackers.
  
  
• Snack hoarding, strategic planning, and insider knowledge shape the distribution of call room treats.
  

2. The Attendings: The Untouchables of the Snack Hierarchy

• Attendings rarely eat call room snacks; they have access to private lounges with catered meals.
  
  
• If they do show up, it's for the rarest snack—no one dares to question their selection.
  
  
• When an attending takes the last granola bar, it is seen as a ceremonial moment, and no one dares to complain.
  

3. The Residents: The Supreme Snack Rulers

• Residents have mastered the art of snack hoarding—years of training in survival mode.
  
  
• They know when new snack shipments arrive and where the best hiding spots are.
  
  
• The golden rule: Always keep an emergency snack stash, preferably hidden behind a medical textbook no one reads.
  
  
• They will swipe the last good snack with the precision of a seasoned surgeon.
  

4. The Fellows: The Middle Children of the Snack World

• Fellows exist in a weird in-between space—too senior to be bullied by residents, but too junior to claim attending-level privileges.
  
  
• They may still partake in call room snacks but usually opt for coffee as their primary source of nutrition.
  
  
• If they find an unattended snack, they will take it and leave a passive-aggressive note about how the hospital should provide better food.
  

5. The Nurses: The Secret Snack Power Players

• Nurses have their own snack economy—often better stocked and more generous than the call room.
  
  
• A well-placed favor to the nurses may earn a resident access to the holy grail: snacks from the nursing station.
  
  
• They also have the best intel on hidden snack reserves and which doctor is most likely to share.
  

6. The Interns: The Starving Bottom Dwellers

• Interns are often too busy (or too scared) to even think about snacks.
  
  
• If they find something edible, they eat it quickly before a resident claims it.
  
  
• They will settle for crumbs, leftover crackers, and mystery candy that may or may not be from last Christmas.
  

7. The Medical Students: The True Snack Sufferers

• Medical students exist at the very bottom of the hierarchy, where snacks are a luxury, not a right.
  
  
• They subsist on black coffee and whatever leftovers no one else wants.
  
  
• By the time they get to the call room, all the good snacks are gone, leaving only the unloved, stale crackers.
  
  
• The only way they can access good snacks is through sheer luck or strategic alliances with sympathetic residents.
  

8. The Snack Strategies: How to Survive the Call Room Hunger Games
A. The Early Bird Gets the Snack

• Timing is everything—snack drops happen at specific times, and only the prepared will feast.
  
  
• Residents have perfected the art of appearing at the right place at the right time.
  

B. Snack Hoarding Tactics

• Secret hiding spots: The back of the supply closet, under the anesthesia cart, or in a hollowed-out textbook.
  
  
• Keeping a decoy snack stash: A visible pile of boring crackers to distract from the real treasure trove.
  

C. Bribery and Trade

• Exchanging snacks for favors: "Cover my post-op notes, and I’ll give you a protein bar."
  
  
• The coffee-for-snack trade is a lucrative business in call rooms.
  

D. Snack Diplomacy: Winning Over Power Players

• Befriend the nurses: They control a hidden world of snacks that most doctors don’t even know exists.
  
  
• If you bring in snacks yourself, you can set the rules—just be prepared for people to "accidentally" take them.
  

9. The Psychology of Call Room Snacks: Why We Care So Much

• Sleep deprivation makes food an emotional experience—snacks become a form of comfort.
  
  
• The unpredictability of hospital work creates a scarcity mindset—if you see food, you take it.
  
  
• The camaraderie of snack-sharing builds bonds among healthcare workers, despite the unspoken competition.
  

10. Legendary Call Room Snack Heists

• The case of the disappearing granola bars: No one knows who took them, but fingers are always pointed at residents.
  
  
• The coffee creamer scandal: One attending’s private stash mysteriously emptied overnight.
  
  
• The great cookie battle: A war erupted when someone claimed the last chocolate chip cookie despite another person's dibs.
  

11. The Future of Call Room Snacks: A New Era?

• Will hospitals ever provide better snacks, or are we doomed to stale crackers forever?
  
  
• Should snack distribution be based on merit, seniority, or hunger levels?
  
  
• The possibility of a "snack fund" where everyone pitches in to stock the call room.
  
  
• The dream: A world where no medical student has to survive on expired crackers again.