The Influence of Food Superstition (Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC) on the On-Duty Surgeon’s Workload: A Multiple-Armed Randomized Controlled Trial

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.