An intern had an ICU patient who wanted to get married in his hospital room before he died. On the day of the ceremony, she traded her scrubs for a dress. The patient asked, “Did you dress up just for me?” When she said yes, he thanked her. 

“That simple exchange was a sacred moment for her,” said Sanjay Saint, MD, Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and co-author of a new paper on how clinicians can cultivate these experiences. 

In a field plagued by heavy caseloads, staffing shortages, and relentless pressure, these brief meaningful connections may serve as a powerful antidote to burnout. Research suggests they happen far more often than clinicians realize — and the more they do, the better they protect against emotional exhaustion.

What Makes a Moment Sacred

Psychologist Kenneth Pargament, PhD, coined the term “sacred moment” while shadowing palliative care chaplains at a cancer center. “They were having these incredibly powerful, brief encounters with patients and family members,” Pargament recalls. “It sent chills down my spine.”

These moments go far beyond standard rapport, according to a new model proposed by Saint and his colleagues. They’re marked by a distinct cluster of qualities — a sense of deep humanity, interconnectedness, and being part of something bigger than oneself. They can bring a sudden feeling of peace or even joy.

“Whether or not you’re a person of faith, there are moments with patients that transcend bedside manner,” said surgeon Mark Shrime, MD, author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon’s Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose. “It sounds cheesy, but these are moments when two human spirits connect, where people feel seen with a capital S.”

What the Evidence Shows

The study of sacred moments doesn’t exactly lend itself to randomized trials, but survey data is compelling. In a 2025 study (coauthored by Saint) of more than 600 randomly selected physicians across the country, 68% said they’d experienced a sacred moment — defined as a “deeply memorable, and sometimes spiritual” connection where it felt “as if time stood still.”

For many, these encounters weren’t anomalies. Nearly a quarter of those physicians reported weekly or monthly occurrences, while another third said they happened a few times a year.

Dosage mattered. More than 75% of physicians who experienced these moments said they helped curb burnout, with higher frequency offering greater protection.

That aligns with Pargament’s earlier research on psychiatrists. “The degree to which they experienced sacred moments was tied to a number of benefits — a stronger relationship with patients and a stronger working alliance,” he said. “They themselves derived greater satisfaction and found more meaning in their work.”

Saint’s survey also revealed a striking force multiplier: reflection. Doctors who discussed sacred moments with colleagues were 40% less likely to experience burnout symptoms than those who didn’t. Yet most participants rarely or never talked about them.

“It’s not normalized in a technologically driven healthcare system to talk about these things,” Saint said. “Sometimes they’re minimized or dismissed as too touchy-feely.”

Why You Might Miss Sacred Moments

Growing demands on healthcare workers leave less and less time to spend with patients — shrinking the very interactions that help clinicians recharge.

“One of the main reasons behind burnout is that both we and the patients feel like cogs in a machine,” Shrime said. “Shorter visits, increased documentation — they’re part of an operationalized system that promised us a certain relationship with our patients but didn’t deliver.”

Saint views it through the lens of author Daniel Pink’s research on workplace motivation — which hinges on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Strip away a clinician’s freedom to connect with patients and time to hone skills, Saint said, and the sense of purpose soon falls away.

“Here you are, on this treadmill taking care of patients. You know how important that job is, but you’re not providing the level of care you would want,” he said. “That moral distress is what leads to burnout, people quitting medicine, or telling their children not to enter the field.”

How to Make Space for Sacred Moments

Reclaiming these connections is ultimately a systemic challenge, and some high-pressure clinical situations simply may not allow for them. But clinicians can take steps — both institutionally and individually — to strengthen the factors that foster them.

On a larger scale, healthcare systems can implement Sacred Moment Rounds, a concept piloted by Saint and his colleagues at the VA Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. In these voluntary gatherings, clinicians meet alongside facilitators like a hospital chaplain to share meaningful stories. Hearing a colleague’s experience can be almost as powerful as living it — in fact, Saint heard the ICU wedding story during one of these sessions.

On an individual level, small, intentional gestures can help clinicians stay present:

• Sit at eye level: Pull up a chair to make conversations feel less rushed and more personal. 
• Offload the screen: Use AI scribes to reduce the documentation barrier between you and your patient. 
• Build a mindfulness cue: Use the sound of the hand sanitizer dispenser as a mental trigger to clear your head before stepping into the next room. 
• Lead with curiosity: Start with a question like “What’s important to you today?” to keep the patient’s humanity front and center. 

Recording these moments can also train your mind to notice them, Pargament said. “At the end of the week, try writing down any sacred moments you experienced. It keeps your mind primed for the possibility,” he said. “If we don’t stop and ask, ‘What just happened?’ the memory fades. But these are the moments that make life worth living.”

The experts cited in this article reported no relevant disclosures.