It is amazing what your body is capable of when you push it to it's limits. When you're busy on call staying up for 36 hours isn't a problem. Endogenous adrenalin is the only drug you should be taking. Most residents do not take uppers (apart from caffeine, and even that not in excess). The tricks are to eat lots of healthy snacks on call (granola bars, fruit, those dried fruit bars, etc.), and never skip meals. Unless the patient is literall coding, they can wait 10 minutes while you eat a quick meal. SKipping meals just makes you even less efficient and you end up accomplishing less.
Most nights on call you do get some sleep (although it may be only 15- 20 minutes at a time). It all adds up, so you have to take advantages if you have a few free minutes. Occasionally though you may have nights where you are crazy busy the whole night long. THe other night i had a wild night of call in the ICU where i literaly never stopped running all night long, and managed several unstable/coding patients simultaneously, running from one end of the ICU to the other. By morning i was a mess, completely manic. You get a little high from the adrenalin and stress. It's quite fun if you're an adrenalin junkie. A few calls in a row like that wears you down though.
Everyone that goes thru residency survives call, so you all will too. Don't worry about it so early in your career.
