Medicine is deeply entangled with fundamental existential questions. Encounters with health, illness, and death often bring reflections on what it means to live well, why we exist, and what awaits us at the end of life. In these moments, doctors may find themselves responding not only as medical experts but also in roles traditionally associated with religious authorities. Medicine, in fact, increasingly offers answers to questions once rooted in religion – most notably, equating a good life with a healthy one.
This study explores how healthcare professionals perceive the spaces and practices surrounding patient encounters in places like consulting rooms, procedure rooms, and operating theatres. Drawing on Kim Knott’s concept of the “secular sacred,” we analyze how certain medical environments, actions, objects, and interactions come to be marked as special or set apart, as sacred, through everyday rituals. Our material is based on written reflections by Finnish medical doctors, offering insight into the embodied and symbolic dimensions of medical care.