For Doctors, Luck Can Explain What They Themselves Cannot

The hospital I work at has no 13th floor.

The absence can be a bit awkward to explain to people. I mean, here sits a building at the center of the modern evidence-based scientific empire. Yet as soon as we set foot in the elevator, it is clear that we have decided to hedge our bets a little, and play the dark side too.

This odd coupling of bullet-train rationality and primal superstition actually is quite common in science. I once worked for an investigator, the most methodical, robotic person I ever have known, who insisted on pointing all of the lab’s workbenches toward the sun for good luck.

I myself have been known to avoid checking test results on certain very ill patients until I can sit at a specific computer. (It’s a lucky workstation, honest.)