In the high stakes world of internal medicine, doctors and other professionals have started to discover that brief, deeply meaningful encounters with patients — “sacred moments” — might be more than great stories to tell their loved ones at the end of a shift.
A new national survey shows that these fleeting yet profound connections could help prevent burnout, an accelerating problem among medical professionals.
Methodology
The University of Michigan study included more than 1,400 randomly selected internal medicine doctors across the United States between June 2023 and May 2024.
The study’s authors reported a response rate of more than 44%. And it marks one of the first nationwide efforts to look at how frequently these encounters occur and what factors contribute to them. The study also explores their possible role in buffering emotional exhaustion and detachment — common warning signs of burnout.
Throughout the course of the survey, the researchers defined sacred moments as “short periods of time that evoke powerful emotions and/or spiritual qualities of transcendence and boundlessness, as if time stood still.” According to the study’s authors, “These moments leave participants with a sense of joy, peace, and empathy for the others involved.”
Insights Into Sacred Moments
More than two-thirds of the survey respondents – 67.7% – reported having had a sacred moment with a patient. Despite how widespread they seem to be, less than 5% of the respondents said they “often” or “always” talked about them with their colleagues. This disconnect, the authors suggest, could represent a missed opportunity for reflection, connection, and support.
Perhaps most importantly, the researchers stumbled across a strong link between the frequency of sacred moments and lower levels of burnout. Simply put, medical personnel who witnessed sacred moments multiple times a year or more were a lot less likely to report extreme burnout compared to those who ran into these moments less often. To put numbers to it, members of the former group appeared to be about 70% less likely to meet the criteria for extreme burnout.
Additionally, those who discussed these moments with another colleague also boasted lower odds of burnout.
“We found that while simply having a sacred moment wasn’t necessarily protective, experiencing them regularly — and even more so, talking about them — was associated with significantly better emotional outcomes,” the researchers wrote.
The study also identified a few character traits that made sacred moments more likely. Physicians who described themselves as highly spiritual were more than twice as likely to report these encounters.
Similarly, those with a strong sense of purpose – on and off the job – had nearly double the odds of enjoying such moments.
Other factors included frequent volunteering and attending social events. As a result, the authors propose that physicians more connected to people after hours also might be more open to making more human connections in a clinical setting.
Battling Burnout
Burnout remains a pressing issue throughout the health care sector.
Earlier studies have shown that as many as 63% of physicians admit to symptoms of burnout, which can threaten the quality of care, induce medical errors, and lead to physician attrition. While systemic solutions — such as reducing administrative burdens or improving staffing levels — would certainly help, this new data suggests that cultivating meaningful moments of connection could serve as a complementary strategy.
“At the individual level, one can be on the lookout for such moments and pause briefly to capture, possibly keeping a journal of profound work experiences, and consider sharing these with a team member or colleague,” the American Medical Association’s vice president of professional satisfaction Christine A. Sinsky, MD, wrote in a complementary editorial.
“At the organizational level, opportunities for deep meaningful interactions can be fostered by guiding principles, intentional practices, efficient workflows, and conducive physical spaces. Reorienting all dimensions of the health care organization around relationships with patients and within teams is the key principle,” she added.
The authors also suggested several interventions to foster sacred moments, such as:
- Including architectural changes that promote eye-level conversations.
- Training clinicians to create internal space for reflection.
- Building time into the clinical encounter for unstructured conversation.
Institutional support for storytelling platforms, such as dedicated forums, podcasts, or written narratives, could also provide physicians with space to share and process these experiences.
In short, promoting awareness of these rare encounters with patients and encouraging doctors to share those experiences could boost physician well-being. It could also enhance the quality of patient-centered care by bringing a much-needed human element back into the heart of the clinical setting.
Further Reading
VA Health Worker Burnout Drops, But Remains High
