08/14/2026
You can be awake and not conscious.
Dr. Jerome Puryear, MD, is an obesity medicine physician and an interventional radiologist. He spent years on night call. It took another sleep physician to tell him he had obstructive sleep apnea.
He knew what exhaustion looked like in everyone else. He missed it in himself.
That is the trap in shift work. You lose the baseline. Every morning feels like the last one, so nothing feels wrong.
On the episode he tells about driving in around 5 or 6 AM, rested, headed down I-75. The 18-wheeler ahead of him swerved hard and left the road, then corrected and came back. It happened again. By the third time they had reached the rest area, and the rest area was full. Trucks were parked along the side of the road because there was nowhere else to put them. The 18-wheeler hit one of them. Debris came across his lane and he had to swerve clear.
There is a common cause for this - drivers cycling through microsleeps.
Eyes open. Hands on the wheel. Not processing the road.
Awake, but you not conscious.
If you work nights, rotate shifts, or drive home after a twelve, this one is for you.
Full episode is on YouTube now.
