Disclamer - I don't really "enjoy" food, and I would happily live on soylent green if it was available - to get done with it and save time. I don't know how my personal experience may apply - a large university hospital is not the army. But after reading the article, it reminds me so many things.

Common meals, especially when you work in a high pressure environmenss, do create something special - something even above "team spirit", a kind of zen moment that provides a unity of purpose.

I remember when 10 years ago I worked as a medical resident in the ICU, and the SAMU (french helimed, basically, if you are really badly damaged, we fly a physician, a paramed and a nurse in a chopper, to right where you are).

It was physically quite demanding: when the times are slow, residents for example had to check the expiration dates, reload doses of the drugs that had been put to use in the kits, test the batteries of the various devices, etc. Boring.

But when you hear a beep, or when your team name is called, you go. You run to the chopper, or to the ICU if they are low on personel and have to give you other assignements.

Anytime in between the beep/run/equipment maintainance, you try to sleep and eat - anyway you can. Back when I did it, it was either in 8h cycles (in one sane departement) or in 24h cycles (everywhere else- a law was voted, but didn't help a lot. too bad)

Anyway, one of the "advantages" of working in 8h rotations or doing a straight 24h was that we also had access to food, 24/7 - made daily by a cook around 11am-1pm and conditioned in small portions, but also industrial food of various kind (things you stuff your pocket with if you worry about fainting when your blood glucose sinks too low, but that you'll do your best NOT TO EAT.)

When we were lucky and could get a meal at 1pm, you could just ask the cook what he could do for you, depending on what he had, and he usually made it, in minutes - that's magic when all your thoughts are one something else.

I still remember - you've got fish today? Put some butter over it, fry it, then add me french fries on the side! Then 2 minutes the food come, it's good, and I start taking about the patient issues with a senior who also ordered specials: eggs, upside down, and a raw steak.

The stuff made by the cook, regardless of what it was, was simply better because it provided an emotional connection too. Even when it was conditioned in small portions for when the cook had to leave, it had been prepared by a team member we knew and truste to make the better with what was available.

There's no way to express that.

How you feel : you are tired, it's 1 or 2 am, you are hungry, you know you still have to work 6 more hours, and you are angry because of something - anything. The nurse misread something. A patient died. A test you expected wasn't ready - anything bad. You are concerned.

Then half the team go and share a meal in the break room, and it's like another world. The hassle goes away. You think about what you will do differently, thanks to the inspiration provided by these few minutes of comfort. And the guys or girls you had problems with, or even entered in a shouting match with - well, at that magic time of the day, everything is laid flat, and everyone understand and forgives. That's where the so called "team player spirit" grows.

The chef is not there, but his food made that happen. I still have my opinions about food, but a place with a 24/7 on site chef, that I could place a high value on.