Bad Luck Charm

Reputations are pretty hard to break.

Like a lousy first impression, ill repute once gained is almost impossible to be rid of - and nothing makes a worse impression in the hospital than being the unfortunate bearer of ill fortune.

Or more accurately, a bad luck charm.

Seriously. We have an unusual term for these so-called bad luck charms in the hospital. Like the ancient sailors, we call these jinxed doctors Jonah. As dedicated men of science, physicians are supposed to scoff at such superstitious illogical nonsense as bad luck but every once in a while, an inexplicable string of catastrophes happens during that particular unfortunate Jonah's oncall. Dozens of patients destabilize at the same time, new ones drop to the ground at the door, the machines fail to function properly, the electric supply crashes - and then even the roof falls in.

Murphy's Law really.

But bad juju does happen, believe it or not, and most times it can't be explained away as mere statistical chance ( what are the freaking odds! One in a billion? ).

God knows who actually started this peculiar term Jonah over here - whether it's named after the unfortunate prophet Jonah of Biblical fame ( with his fishing misadventures ) or some bewitched physician going by the same name many years ago. Obviously, some disgruntled patient must have cast the evil eye on the poor guy.

More than a few of us have been labelled as Jonah... and honestly I'm one of the unfortunate few - though of late, I feel that I'm starting to shed some of that bad juju ( got my fingers crossed hopefully! ). Still terrible calls are the rule rather than the exception - and going through a grueling 24-hour-call without a minor disaster always comes as a surprise. Even fills me with unwelcome suspicion in the wee hours of the morning as I wonder whether something calamitous has happened somewhere without my knowledge ( or whether my uncooperative pager has died on me ).


Trying on that lucky shirt!
Of course we all have our own ways of dealing with this - and most everyone I know has their own version of a good luck charm. After all no one wishes to be branded as the Jonah to be tossed overboard and swallowed by a passing whale.

Hear that lucky underwear and socks are par for the course though very few would admit to it. Ever the irreverent creature, Shameless Shalom swears on her infamous Red (hair)Band of Courage - though last I heard it was broken and not replaced as yet. Another colleague of mine used to believe in daily flower scented baths at exactly 6 in the evening to ward off evil. Hell, even the folks in Seattle Grace depend on their regular hot chocolate to promote good chi.