Holidays in the Hospital

It’s a common sentiment that working on a holiday is terrible. I hear residents groan when they see a holiday shift on the schedule. And yet, I often tell them the opposite is true. Much like working on a weekend, there is something strangely, unexpectedly good about working on a holiday.

On the most superficial level, there are the decorations, the candy scattered across nurses’ stations, and the free food. Elective surgeries are on hold — the pace shifts. There is a rare and gentle quiet that settles over parts of the hospital.

Beneath that is a second, deeper layer: the camaraderie shaped by a shared understanding that no one truly wants to be here. Not the patients. Not the nurses. Not the doctors, techs, environmental services staff, or cafeteria workers. Every one of us would rather be home with the people we love. That leads to a solidarity that is unique to the holidays.

There is an unspoken truth about who ends up in a hospital on a major holiday. People with minor complaints or ulterior motives usually stay home. No one gives up Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Year’s unless they genuinely need help. The stakes are high. The suffering is real.

The same is true for physicians. On a regular day, medicine can vanish beneath documentation, meetings, metrics, and administrative demands. On the worst days, patient care feels like an afterthought. But not on a holiday. On a holiday, a doctor is there for one reason only—to care for the sick. That clarity is grounding. It reminds us who we are.

Which leads to the third and deepest layer of all. Holidays remind us that medicine is not just a job; it is a vocation.

While we often equate holidays with joy, that is a misunderstanding of the very nature of a holiday. Ask anyone who has experienced a death, divorce, or tragedy around the holidays. The presence of suffering does not negate the experience of the holiday—it intensifies it.

The fundamental nature of a holy day is not happiness; it is sacredness.

As a child, I was taught that holidays mean Holy Days, and that to be holy means to be set apart. On these setapart days, everything feels sharper: joy and grief, love and loss, hope and fear. All of it is more acute. More profound. More human.

That is why I have never left the hospital on a holiday with regret. Because medicine, too, is sacred. To walk with someone through the most human experiences—life, illness, and death—is a calling set apart. To share this calling with our colleagues and our patients on a sacred day is an extraordinary privilege.

Even in the hospital. Even on a holiday.

Especially in the hospital.

Especially on a holiday.

May we each find the sacred in the work we do this holiday, and every day.

Rachel Johnson is Associate Program Director for Specialty Rotations and Scholarly Activity for the Wellstar Kennestone Hospital Internal Medicine program. She serves as Clinical Assistant Professor and Clerkship Site Director for the Medical College of Georgia Wellstar Campus. She is a practicing hospitalist with interests in digital medical education and evidence-based medicine.

Photo Credit: Monica Grabkowska