Take a bao if you are not superstitious.
BACKGROUND
Singaporeans are superstitious, and medical staff are no exception to the rule. We conducted a survey to determine the prevalence of superstitious beliefs and practices amongst doctors, nurses and medical students in Singapore.


METHODS
Internet and face-to-face surveys of 68 respondents, all of whom completed the survey after being threatened with curses and hexes.


RESULTS
Sixty-eight doctors, nurses and medical students responded to our survey. Only 11 admitted to being superstitious, yet 31 believed in the ill-fortune associated with eating bao or meat dumplings, 6 in the nefarious powers of black (5) or red (1) outfits on call, and 14 believed that bathing (6 insisting on the powers of the seven-flower bath) prior to the onset of a call portended good fortune, in terms of busy-ness of a call. Twenty-four believed in "black clouds", i.e. people who attracted bad luck whilst on call, and 32 refused to mouth the words "having a good call" until the day after the event. We discovered 2 hitherto undescribed and undiscovered superstitions, namely the benefits of eating bread and the need to avoid beef, for the good and ill fortune associated with their ingestion.


CONCLUSIONS
Superstitious practices are alive and well in modern-day Singapore, the practice not necessarily being restricted to the poorly-educated or foolish.
Lim
Erle C H
EC
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. erlelim@nus.edu.sg
Oh
Vernon M S
VM
Quek
Amy M L
AM
Seet
Raymond C S
RC
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D012846:Singapore; D013483:Superstitions