Takeaway
The emotional fragmentation clinicians sometimes experience moving between patients can feel challenging. A few seconds of intentional transition—taking one deep breath or washing hands with presence—can allow them to be more fully present for the next patient.
Lifelong learning in clinical excellence | August 27, 2026 | 4 min read
By Nettie Reynolds, MDiv, interfaith chaplain
I left a hospital room where a patient was screaming, and complicated family dynamics had raised the emotional temperature for everyone. There was tension, urgency, and the feeling that so much was happening at once.
Then I walked down the hall and into another room, where an older patient was sitting by herself, quietly crying. The physical distance between the two rooms wasn’t far, but emotionally, they couldn’t have been farther apart. This experience stayed with me because healthcare professionals often have to make abrupt transitions without having time to process each patient encounter.
The emotional distance between rooms
A healthcare professional may leave a room where someone has just received devastating news and walk into the next where a patient is relieved to be going home. A difficult family conversation may be followed by a routine visit. Anger may be followed by grief, fear by laughter, a crisis by an ordinary conversation about medications.
Meanwhile, the body and brain are trying to keep up. Research on emergency physicians offers one glimpse of how fragmented a clinical day can be. In one observational study, doctors experienced an average of more than 11 interruptions per hour. The researchers recorded 2,355 interruptions across 210 clinical hours and found that more than half of the interruptions occurring inside patient rooms were considered low priority.
We talk a great deal in healthcare about care transitions for patients. I wonder if we need to think more about the transitions healthcare professionals make, too.
What can we do with 30 seconds?
Slowing down sounds wonderful until you’re already behind and someone’s waiting for you in the next room. Telling a busy clinician to find five minutes to meditate between patients probably isn’t going to help much.
So, what can we do with the 30 seconds we might actually have? Perhaps the walk down the hallway can become part of the transition. Maybe it’s one slow breath before opening the next door, feeling both feet on the floor for a moment, or noticing that your jaw is clenched and letting it soften. Even washing your hands can offer a natural pause if, instead of mentally racing ahead, you allow yourself to notice the water and take a breath.
A brief pause may be worth trying. In a pilot randomized controlled trial, healthcare professionals participated in a stressful medical simulation and then either practiced a brief contemplative intervention called “The Pause” or were assigned to a control group with no intervention. Researchers found a difference in one measure of heart rate variability associated with stress response, although they didn’t find significant differences in heart rate or blood pressure. The authors concluded that “The Pause” may help reduce stress reactivity and increase resilience.
That doesn’t mean we need to turn 30 seconds in the hallway into another wellness assignment. It’s simply an invitation to notice what we’re carrying before we carry it through the next door.
Taking and giving one minute
There’s another part of this conversation that may matter just as much—we don’t always have to create these transitions alone. Sometimes a colleague can tell we’ve just experienced a challenging patient encounter. They recognize the look on our face or overheard what happened. And then they might say, “I’ve got this for a minute. Go get some water.”
That minute matters. And we can give someone a minute when we have one to give. We can ask “Are you ok to go into the next room?” and mean it. We can recognize that the person who appears composed may still be carrying what happened five minutes earlier. There will also be days when we’re the person who needs someone to notice.
Leave one room before entering another
Small transitions aren’t about becoming perfectly calm before every encounter, nor are they a solution to workloads, staffing shortages, or the myriad other pressures clinicians face. They’re a way of recognizing that we’re human beings moving between other human beings, and sometimes we need a moment to catch up with ourselves.
In my own practice, I found three short practices helpful:
1. Use the walk between rooms to wash your hands mindfully or take deep breath before entering as a signal that one encounter has ended.
2. Notice what you’re carrying without expecting yourself to make it disappear.
3. Take notice of colleagues, especially when a coworker has just stepped out of a difficult room.
The distance between two rooms may only be a few feet long, but some days we’re being asked to travel an enormous emotional distance. We may not be able to make the hallway longer or give ourselves five extra minutes, but we can recognize the threshold for what it is—a brief chance to leave one room before entering another.
This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.