SG: In Persian Culture you never, ever, ever ,ever, ever, bring black gifts or flowers or anything to a hospital patient. it’s considered an omen that the patient won’t be leaving the hospital. Its preferential to use blue or turquoise colors in order to ward off negative energy.

Context: She learned this from her Persian family members, and actually performed the occupational hazard herself and was reprimanded by her parents. From then on she has made sure to only gift and wear positively associated colors in hospitals.

Analysis: This occupational taboo reflects the high stakes environment of healthcare, where symbolic associations are treated with the same caution as physical symptoms. Superstition is intensified in such spaces, where the stakes of life and death are raised. People draw closer to death in such spaces and thus are more inclined to follow natural laws and folk beliefs in a last ditch effort to claim some sort of power over natural forces like death.