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The Influence of Food Superstition (Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC) on the On-Duty Surgeon's Workload: A Multiple-Armed
Thanat Tantinam1, Sineenart Honglertkawin2, Suphanat Wongsanuphat3
1General Surgery Unit, Phatthalung Hospital, Phatthalung, Thailand.
Objective:
To determine whether consuming Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) before a surgical on-call shift increases operative workload, as is widely believed among Thai healthcare workers.
Design:
Three-arm randomized controlled trial.
Setting:
General surgery department, Phatthalung Hospital, July 2023-June 2024.
Participants:
Five general surgeons contributing 345 duty shifts; 313 shifts formed the primary analysis (Control 107, KFC 101, Five Star 105) after excluding 32 resident-present shifts.
Interventions:
Shifts were randomly allocated (permuted blocks, allocation concealment) to Control (no intervention), KFC, or Five Star brand fried chicken.
Main Outcome Measures:
Primary outcomes: total workload (cases per shift), number of operations, and number of consultations. Secondary outcomes: estimated blood loss and operative time. Exploratory outcome: surgeon belief score change before and after trial completion.
Results:
No primary outcome differed significantly between arms. Median total workload was 14 (IQR 11-17), 16 (IQR 12-19), and 14 (IQR 11-17) cases per shift for Control, KFC, and Five Star arms, respectively (P = 0.22). Operations (P = 0.71), estimated blood loss (P = 0.86), and operative time (P = 0.55) were similarly nonsignificant. A borderline overall difference in consultations (P = 0.046) was not attributable to either active arm versus Control on post hoc testing. Linear mixed-effects modeling confirmed no arm effect on any outcome after adjusting for surgeon, duty type, and resident presence. Belief scores declined significantly after trial completion (P = 0.037).
Conclusions:
KFC consumption does not increase surgical on-call workload. The significant decline in surgeon belief scores suggests that structured self-experimentation may effectively challenge culturally embedded superstitions in clinical practice.
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