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Taking a Sabbatical From Healthcare with Shayne Foley

·45 min·3 clips

Shane says many employers do not offer sabbaticals, so workers may have to create the arrangement themselves.

White Coats of the Roundtable takes on career sabbaticals as a topic the show has yet to tackle. Mike Asbeck frames the discussion from his own life, where a run of August vacations has him wondering if he should just take the whole month off. He brings in Shane Foley, a certified full-time PA with 11 years of practice across internal medicine, urgent care, and family medicine. That background helps ground the idea of time away in the reality of healthcare work. The conversation starts with the appeal of stepping back from the grind. It links sabbaticals to burnout prevention and career development, which fits the show’s broader focus. Shane talks through how he thinks about the idea. He starts with the dream. Then he brings in the reality. That pattern becomes one of the episode’s clearest tools. He describes imagining the ideal version of time away without restrictions. After that, he checks the plan against the people and responsibilities that are actually in the picture. He uses his own family as the example, including a wife, a 15-month-old, and a dog. The point is not to shut the dream down. The point is to make it usable. From there, the episode moves into the tension between long sabbaticals and ordinary vacation time. Shane contrasts a true break with the typical American one-to-two-week trip. He suggests that shorter vacations often mean going hard while you are away and may leave little room to fully recover. A sabbatical, by contrast, creates room to slow down and really detach from work. That longer window can make recovery possible in a way a short trip usually does not. The episode also looks at what people might do with that time. Shane talks about learning a hobby, picking up the guitar, reading, or building a new skill. He also mentions practical interests like real estate investing. The conversation treats a sabbatical as more than idle rest. It can be a period for recovery and for focused personal growth. A staycation comes up as another legitimate version of the same idea. Shane notes that staying close to home can reduce the financial burden while still removing work from the equation. That makes the time easier to use and easier to afford. The listener hears a workable range here, from travel-heavy dreams to simpler local resets. The episode does not force one answer. Family obligations shape the discussion throughout. The show keeps asking what is actually possible rather than what sounds best in theory. That makes the episode especially relevant to clinicians with caregiving responsibilities or other constraints. It also makes the conversation feel more honest. There is room for aspiration, but not at the expense of the rest of life. The health of the clinician stays in the background the whole time. Burnout is not treated as a buzzword. It is the reason the topic matters. Time away is framed as a way to recover from burnout and then step into something else with more energy. That gives the episode a practical center even when the discussion widens into broader life design. The hosts also keep returning to the workplace reality of healthcare schedules. Mike’s own clinic slows in August, which makes the sabbatical idea feel timely and concrete. That detail matters because it shows how the topic shows up in real calendars, not just in abstract career talk. The episode feels like a working conversation among peers trying to name something many clinicians quietly consider. Shane’s answers are not polished slogans. They are more like a method for sorting through a big decision. Dream first. Inventory your life. Reconcile the two. That structure gives the conversation shape without making it rigid. It fits the show’s plainspoken style and its interest in career decisions that are human before they are strategic. The episode also leaves room for ambiguity. Not every sabbatical will look dramatic. Some will be a month away from work. Some will be a staycation. Some will turn into a chance to try something new that has been on hold for years. The point is that the break has to fit the person taking it. By the end, the topic has widened beyond time off alone. It becomes a way to think about work, recovery, and what healthcare professionals need in order to keep going. The conversation does not pretend that stepping away solves burnout on its own. It does suggest that real rest, planned well, can make a sabbatical more workable. That is the episode’s practical value. The episode ends in the same neighborly, professional register it starts with. The hosts thank Shane and point listeners to his work through PA Blueprint and his social channels. The overall effect is conversational, reflective, and useful for anyone trying to imagine a healthier relationship with work. It is less about escaping healthcare than about figuring out how to stay human inside it.

As heard by us

A grounded look at what a healthcare sabbatical can mean in practice.

Career sabbaticals are treated as a practical workplace question, not a daydream: how to step away, recover, and still make room for family, money, pets, and practice.

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Why you'd press play

If you are thinking about a career sabbatical or a real break from clinical life, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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