The secret superstitions of surgeons: How rituals impact surgical success
“Man is a dupeable animal. Quacks in medicine, quacks in religion, and quacks in politics know this, and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely anyone who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling…there is scarcely a disease for which a charm has not been given.”
– Thomas J. Pettigrew
As a surgeon, when I routinely went to the OR, I had a ritual. I would …